TO THE HOMES'. OF 
EMINENT ORATORS 



Savonarola 
From the engraving by Desrochers 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
NEW 

Ube Iknicfcerbocfcer press 

1907 



LITTLE JOURNEYS 
TO THE HOMES OF 
EMINENT ORATORS 



BY 

ELBERT HUBBARD 



PERICLES • ANTONY • SAVONAROLA 

LUTHER • BURKE • PITT • MARAT 

INGERSOLL ■ HENRY • KING 

BEECHER • PHILLIPS 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Zbc fmicfcerbocker press 

1907 



1907 



I USRARY of CGWGRESS 
J iwu CoDle? Received 

OCT 26 *W 



^ Copyright Entry 
CUSS A XXC„ No. 
COPY B. 






Copyright, 1903 

BY 

ELBERT HUBBARD 



Copyright, 1907 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Ube TRnfcfeerbocfecr flrcss, Ittew lorft 




CONTENTS 



i Pericles 

2 Mark Antony 

3 Savonarola 

4 Martin Luther 

5 Edmund Burke 

6 William Pitt 

7 Jean Paul Marat 

8 Robert Ingersoll 

9 Patrick Henry . 
io Starr King 
ii Henry Ward Beecher 
12 Wendell Phillips 



i 

43 

93 

137 

203 

2 37 
267 
301 

359 

403 

453 
505 





ILLUSTRATIONS 



SAVONAROLA . . Frontispiece 

From the engraving by Desrochers. 

PERICLES 8 

From an engraving by Bovi from the 
original bust. 

MARK ANTONY 48 

From an old copper print. 

MARTIN LUTHER 142 

From the painting by Cranach. 

EDMUND BURKE 208 

From an engraving by Edward Smith. 

WILLIAM PITT 242 

From the painting by Brompton. 

JEAN PAUL MARAT . . . .272 

From the engraving by W. H. Egleton. 

ROBERT INGERSOLL . . . .306 

From a photograph by Bogardus, New- 
York. 



Ullustras 

tions 



VI 



"(Illustrations 



Wlustras 
tions 



PATRICK HENRY 

After a painting by J. B. Longacre. 

STARR KING ' 

From a steel engraving. 

HENRY WARD BEECHER . 

From a photograph by Sarony, New York. 

WENDELL PHILLIPS .... 
From a steel engraving. 



PAGE 



408 
458 
5IO 




PERICLES 



When we agreed, O Aspasia! in the beginning of 
our loves, to communicate our thoughts by writing, 
even while we were both in Athens, and when we had 
many reasons for it, we little foresaw the more pow- 
erful one that has rendered it necessary of late. We 
never can meet again: the laws forbid it, and love 
itself enforces them. Let wisdom be heard by you 
as imperturbably, and affection as authoritatively, 
as ever; and remember that the sorrow of Pericles 
can rise but from the bosom of Aspasia. There is 
only one word of tenderness we could say, which we 
have not said oftentimes before ; and there is no con- 
solation in it. The happy never say, and never hear 
said, farewell. 

Reviewing the course of my life, it appears to me 
at one moment as if we met but yesterday; at an- 
other as if centuries had passed within it ; for within 
it have existed the greater part of those who, since 
the origin of the world, have been the luminaries of 
the human race. Damon called me from my music 
to look at Aristides on his way to exile; and my 
father pressed my wrist by which he was leading me 
along, and whispered in my ear : 

"Walk quickly by; glance cautiously; it is there 
Miltiades is in prison." 

In my boyhood Pindar took me up in his arms, 
when he brought to our house the dirge he had 
composed for the funeral of my grandfather ; in my 
adolescence I offered the rites of hospitality to Em- 



Bspasfa 



[Pericles 



Uo pedocles: not long afterward I embraced the neck 

Bspasla of ^Eschylus, about to abandon his country. With 
Sophocles I have argued on eloquence; with Eu- 
ripides on policy and ethics, I have discoursed, as 
became an inquirer, with Protagoras and Democritus. 
with Anaxagoras and Meton. From Herodotus 
I have listened to the most instructive history, 
conveyed in a language the most copious and the 
most harmonious ; a man worthy to carry away the 
collected suffrages of universal Greece; a man 
worthy to throw open the temples of Egypt, and to 
celebrate the exploits of Cyrus. And from Thucyd- 
ides, who alone can succeed to him, how recently 
did my Aspasia hear with me the energetic praises 
of his just supremacy. 

As if the festival of life were incomplete, and 
wanted one great ornament to crown it, Phidias 
placed before us, in ivory and gold, the tutelary deity 
of his land, the Zeus of Homer and Olympus. 

To have lived with such men, to have enjoyed 
their familiarity and esteem, overpays all labours and 
anxieties. I were unworthy of the friendships I 
have commemorated, were I forgetful of the latest. 
Sacred it ought to be, formed as it were under the 
Portico of Death, my friendship with the most 
sagacious, the most scientific, the most beneficent of 
Philosophers, Acron and Hippocrates. If mortal 
could war against Pestilence and Destiny, they had 
been victorious. I leave them in the field: unfor- 
tunate he who finds them among the fallen. 

And now at the close of my day, when every light 
is dim and every guest departed, let me own that 
these wane before me, remembering, as I do in the 
pride and fulness of my heart, that Athens confided 
her glory and Aspasia her happiness, to me. 

Have I been a faithful guardian? Do I resign 



Pericles 



them to the custody of the gods undiminished and 
unimpaired? Welcome then, welcome, my last 
hour! After enjoying for so great a number of years, 
in my public and private life, what I believe has 
never been the lot of any other, I now extend my 
hand to the urn, and take without reluctance or 
hesitation that which is the lot of all. 



Bspasta 



PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 

(WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.) 



Pericles 



ONCE upon a day there was a grocer 
who lived in Indianapolis, Indiana. 
The grocer's name being Heinrich Schlie- 
mann, his nationality can be inferred; 
and as for pedigree, it is enough to state 
that his ancestors did not land either at 
Plymouth or Jamestown. However, he 
was an American citizen. 

Now this grocer made much moneys, for 
he sold groceries as were, and had a feed 
barn, a hay scale, a sommer garten, and a 
lunch counter. In fact, his place of busi- 
ness was just the kind you would expect 
a strenuous man by the name of Schlie- 
mann to keep. 

Soon Schliemann had men on the road, 
and they sold groceries as far west as 
Peoria and east as far as Xenia. 

Schliemann grew rich, and the opening 
up of Schliemann' s division, where town 



Iboosier 
Orocer 



Xittle Journeps 



Stuping 

©reek 



lots were sold at auction, and Anheuser- 
Busch played an important part, helped 
his bank balance not a little. 

Schliemann grew rich; and the gentle 
reader, being clairvoyant, now sees Schlie- 
mann weighed on his own hay scales — and 
wanting everything in sight — tipping the 
beam at part of a ton. The expectation is, 
that Schliemann will evolve into a large 
oval satrap, grow beautifully boastful and 
sublimely reminiscent, representing his 
ward in the Common Council until apo- 
plexy prunes him off in his prime. 

But this time the reader is wrong: 
Schliemann was tall, slender, and reserved, 
also taciturn. Groceries were not the 
goal. In fact, he had interests outside 
of Indianapolis, that few knew anything 
about. When Schliemann was thirty- 
eight years old he was worth half a million 
dollars; and, instead of making his big 
business still bigger, he was studying 
Greek. It was a woman and Eros that 
taught Schliemann Greek ; and this in order 
that letters could be written — dictated by 
Eros, who they do say is an awful dictator 
— that would not be easily construed by 
Hoosier hoi polloi. Together, the woman 



m.fttu-' 



le. 



his 
Pericles 



From an engraving by Bovi from tfoe original bust 



















■ 


















Pericles 



and Schliemann studied the history of 
Hellas. 

About the year 1868, Schliemann turned 
all of his Indiana property into cash; and 
in April, 1870, he was digging in the hill 
of Hissarlik, Troad. The same faculty 
of thoroughness, and the ability to captain 
a large business — managing men to his 
own advantage, and theirs — made his 
work in Greece a success. Schliemann' s 
discoveries at Mt. Athos, Mycenae, Ithaca, 
and Tiryns turned a search-light upon 
prehistoric Hellas and revolutionised pre- 
vailing ideas concerning the rise and de- 
velopment of Greek Art. 

His Trojan treasures were presented to 
the city of Berlin. Had Schliemann given 
his priceless findings to Indianapolis, it 
would have made that city a sacred Mecca 
for all the Western world — set it apart, and 
caused James Whitcomb Riley to be a 
mere side-show, inept, inconsequent, im- 
material, and insignificant. But alas! In- 
dianapolis never knew Schliemann when 
he lived there — they thought he was a 
Dutch grocer ! And all the honours went 
to Benjamin Harrison, Governor Morton, 
and Thomas A. Hendricks. 



TErojan 
Ureasutes 



Xittle Journeys 



If the Indiana novelists would cease 
their dalliance with Dame Fiction and turn 
to truth, writing a simple record of the 
life of Schliemann, it would eclipse in 
strangeness all the knighthoods that ever 
were in flower, and Ben Hur would get the 
flag in his Crawfordsville chariot race for 
fame. 

Berlin gave the freedom of the city to 
Schliemann; the Emperor of Germany 
bestowed on him a knighthood; the Uni- 
versity voted him a Ph.D.; Heidelberg 
made him a D.C.L. ; and St. Petersburg 
followed with an LL.D. 

The value of the treasure, now in the 
Berlin Museum, found by Schliemann, 
exceeds by far the value of the Elgin 
marbles in the British Museum. We know, 
and have always known, who built the 
Parthenon and crowned the Acropolis; 
but not until Schliemann had by faith and 
good works removed the mountain of 
Hissarlik did we know that the Troy of 
which blind Homer sang was not a figment 
of the poet's brain. 

Schliemann showed us that a thousand 
years before the age of Pericles there was 
a civilisation almost as great. Aye ! more 



Pericles 



ii 



than this — he showed us that the ancient 
city of Troy was built upon the ruins of a 
city that throve and pulsed with life and 
pride, a thousand years or more before 
Thetis, the mother of Achilles, held her 
baby by the heel and dipped him in the 
River Styx. Schliemann passed to the 
realm of shade in 1890, and is buried at 
Athens, in the Ceramicus, in a grave ex- 
cavated by his own hands in a search for 
the grave of Pericles. 

Pericles lived nearly twenty-five cen- 
turies ago. The years of his life were 
sixty-six — during the last thirty-one of 
which, by popular acclaim, he was the 
" first citizen of Athens." 

The age in which he lived is called the 
Age of Pericles. 

Shakespeare died less than three hundred 
years ago, and, although he lived in a 
writing age and every decade since has 
seen a plethora of writing men, yet writing 
men are now bandying words as to whether 
he lived at all. 

Between us and Pericles lie a thousand 
years of night, when styli were stilled, 
pens forgotten, chisels thrown aside, 
brushes were useless, and oratory was 



Ubouoano 

JJears of 

migbt 



12 



Xittle Sournegs 



Cbronicles 



silent, dumb. Yet we know the man 
Pericles quite as well as the popular mind 
knows George Washington who lived but 
yesterday, and with whom myth and fable 
have already played their part. 

Thucydides, a contemporary of Peri- 
cles, who outlived him nearly half a cen- 
tury, wrote his life. Fortunately Thucyd- 
ides was big enough himself to take the 
measure of a great man. At least seven 
other contemporaries, whose works we 
have in part, wrote also of the ''first 
citizen." 

To Plutarch are we indebted for much 
of our knowledge of Pericles, and fortun- 
ately we are in position to verify most 
of Plutarch's gossipy chronicles. The van- 
ishing point of time is seen in that Plu- 
tarch refers to Pericles as an "ancient"; 
and through the mist of years it hardly 
seems possible that between Plutarch and 
Pericles is a period of five hundred years. 
Plutarch resided in Greece when Paul 
was at Athens, Corinth, and other Grecian 
cities. Later Plutarch was at Miletus, 
about the time that Paul stopped there on 
his way to Rome to be tried for blasphemy 
— the same offence committed by Socrates, 



Pericles 



13 



and a sin charged, too, against Pericles. 
Nature punishes for most sins, but sacri- 
lege, heresy, and blasphemy are not in her 
calendar, so man has to look after them. 
Plutarch visited Patmos, where St. John 
was exiled and where he wrote the Book 
of Revelation. Plutarch was also at " Malta 
by the Sea" where Paul was shipwrecked, 
but, so far as we know, he never heard of 
Paul nor of Him of whom, upon Mars Hill, 
Paul preached. 

Paul bears testimony that at Athens the 
people spent their time in nothing else 
but either to tell or to hear some new thing. 
They were curious as children, and had 
to be diverted and amused. They were 
the same people that Pericles had 
diverted, amused, and used — used with- 
out their knowing it, five hundred years 
before. 

The gentle and dignified Anaxagoras, 
who abandoned all his property to the 
State that he might be free to devote him- 
self to thought, was the first and best 
teacher of Pericles. Under his tutorship 
— better, the companionship of this noble 
man — Pericles acquired that sublime self- 
restraint, that intellectual breadth, that 



fffrst 
Ueacber 



M 



Xtttle Journeys 



peace 
at Dome 



freedom from superstition which marked 
his character. 

Superstitions are ossified metaphors and 
back of every religious fallacy lies a truth. 
The gods of Greece were once men who 
fought their valiant fight and lived their 
day; the supernatural is the natural not 
yet understood — it is the natural seen 
through the mist of one, two, three, ten 
or twenty-five hundred years when things 
loom large and out of proportion, and all 
these things were plain to Pericles. Yet he 
kept his inmost belief to himself, and let 
the mob believe whate'er it list. Morley's 
book on Compromise would not have ap- 
pealed much to Pericles — his answer would 
have been, "A man must do what he can, 
and not what he would. " Yet he was no 
vulgar demagogue truckling to the caprices 
of mankind, nor was he a tyrant who pitted 
his will against the many and subdued 
by a show of arms. For thirty years he 
kept peace at home, and if this peace was 
once or twice cemented by an insignificant 
foreign war, he proved thereby that he was 
abreast of Napoleon, who said, "The cure 
for civil dissension is war abroad." Peri- 
cles stands alone in his success as a states- 



Pericles 



J 5 



man. It was Thomas Brackett Reed, I 
believe, who said, "A statesman is a poli- 
tician who is dead. " 

And this is a sober truth, for, to reveal 
the statesman, perspective is required. 

Pericles built and maintained a state, 
and he did it as every statesman must, 
by recognising and binding to him ability. 
It is a fine thing to have ability, but the 
ability to discover ability in others is the 
true test. While Pericles lived there also 
lived ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Zeno, 
Pythagoras, Socrates, Herodotus, Hippoc- 
rates, Pindar, Empedocles and Democritus. 
Such a galaxy of stars has never been 
seen before or since — unless we have it now 
— and Pericles was their one central sun. 

Pericles was great in many ways — great 
as an orator, musician, philosopher, poli- 
tician, financier, and great and wise as a 
practical leader. Lovers of beauty are 
apt to be dreamers, but this man had the 
ability to plan, devise, lay out work, and 
carry it through to a successful conclusion. 
He infused others with his own animation, 
and managed to set a whole city full of 
lazy people building a temple grander far 
in its rich simplicity than the world had 



One 

Central 

Sun 



16 Xfttle Journeys 



passion ever seen. By his masterly eloquence 
»eautB and the magic of his presence, Pericles 
infused the Greeks with a passion for 
beauty and a desire to create. And no 
man can inspire others with the desire to 
create who has not taken sacred fire from 
the altar of the gods. The creative genius 
is the highest gift vouchsafed to man, and 
wherein man is likest God. The desire 
to create does not burn the heart of the 
serf, and only free people can respond to 
the greatest power ever given to any 
First Citizen. 

v In beautifying the city there was a 
necessity for workers in stone, brass, iron, 
ivory, gold, silver, and wood. Six thousand 
of the citizens were under daily pay as 
jurors, to be called upon if their services 
were needed ; most of the other male adults 
were soldiers. Through the genius of 
Pericles and his generals these men were 
set to work as masons, carpenters, braziers, 
goldsmiths, painters, and sculptors. Talent 
was discovered where before it was sup- 
posed there was none; music found a 
voice; play- writers discovered actors; ac- 
tors found an audience; and philosophy 
had a hearing. A theatre was built, carved 



IPericies 



almost out of solid stone, that seated ten 
thousand people, and on the stage there 
was often heard a chorus of a thousand 
voices. Physical culture developed the 
perfect body so that the Greek forms of 
that time are to-day the despair of the 
human race. The recognition of the sa- 
credness of the temple of the soul was 
taught as a duty; and to make the body 
beautiful by right exercise and by right 
life became a science. The sculptor must 
have had models approaching perfection, 
and the exhibition of the sculptor's work, 
together with occasional public religious 
processions of naked youths, kept before 
the people ideals superb and splendid. 

For several years everybody worked, 
carrying stone, hewing, tugging, lifting, 
carving. Up the steep road that led to 
the Acropolis was a constant procession 
carrying materials. So infused was every- 
body and everything with the work that 
a story is told of a certain mule that had 
hauled a cart in the endless procession. 
This worthy worker, "who was sustained 
by neither pride of ancestry nor hope of 
posterity, " finally became galled and lame 
and was turned out to die. But the mule 



pb^sfcal 
Culture 



Xittle Journeys 



Bpprecias 
tton of 
tbe JBeet 



did not die — nothing dies until hope dies. 
That mule pushed his way back into the 
throng and up and down he went, filled 
and comforted with the thought that he 
was doing his work — and all respected 
him and made way. If this story was 
invented by a comic poet of the time, 
devised by an enemy of Pericles, we see its 
moral, and think no less of Pericles. To 
inspire a mule with a passion for work and 
loyalty in a great cause is no mean thing. 

So richly endowed was the character of 
Pericles that he was able to appreciate the 
best not only in men, but in literature, 
painting, sculpture, music, architecture, 
and life. In him there was as near a 
perfect harmony as we have ever seen — 
in him all the various lines of Greek culture 
united, and we get the perfect man. Un- 
der the right conditions there might be 
produced a race of such men — but such a 
race never lived in Greece and never could. 
Greece was a splendid experiment. Greece 
was God's finest plaything — devised to 
show what He could do. 

I have sometimes thought that comeli- 
ness of feature and fine physical propor- 
tions were a handicap to an orator. If 



H>erfcles 19 



a man is handsome, it is quite enough — ube 



let him act as chairman and limit his words 
to stating the pleasure he has in intro- 
ducing the speaker. No man in a full 
dress suit can sway a thousand people to 
mingle mirth and tears, play upon their 
emotions and make them remember the 
things they have forgotten, drive con- 
viction home, and change the ideals of a 
lifetime in an hour. The man in spotless 
attire, with necktie mathematically ad- 
justed, is an usher. If too much attention 
to dress is in evidence, we at once conclude 
that the attire is first in importance and 
the message secondary. 

The orator is a man we hate, fear, or 
love, and are curious to see. His raiment 
is incidental ; the usher's clothes are vital. 
The attire of the usher may reveal the 
man — but not so the speaker. If our 
first impressions are disappointing, so much 
the better, provided the man is a man. 

The best thing in Winston Churchill's 
book The Crisis is his description of 
Lincoln's speech at Freeport. Churchill 
got that description from a man who was 
there. Where the issue was great, Lin- 
coln was always at first a disappointment. 



©ratot 



2o Xxttle Sourness 

2>f gs His unkempt appearance, his awkward- 
aP ment tS ness, his shrill voice — these things made 
people laugh, then they were ashamed 
because they laughed, then they pitied, 
next followed surprise, and before they 
knew it they were being wrapped round 
by words so gracious, so fair, so convincing, 
so free from prejudice, so earnest, and so 
charged with soul that they were taken 
captive, bound hand and foot. 

Talmage, who knew his business, used 
to work this element of disappointment 
as an art. When the event was important 
and he wished to make a particularly good 
impression, he would begin in a very low, 
sing-song voice, and in a monotonous 
manner, dealing in trite nothings for five 
minutes or more. His angular form would 
seem to take on more angles and his homely 
face would grow more homely — if it were 
possible; disappointment would spread 
itself over the audience like a fog; people 
would settle back in their pews, sigh and 
determine to endure. And then sud- 
denly the speaker would glide to the front, 
his great chest would fill, his immense 
mouth would open and there would leap 
forth a sentence like a thunderbolt. 



Pericles 



Visitors at "The Temple," London, will 
recall how Joseph Parker worked the matter 
of surprise, and often piqued curiosity 
by beginning his sermon to two thousand 
people in a voice that was just above a 
whisper. 

One of the most impressive orators of 
modern times was John P. Altgeld, yet 
to those who heard him for the first time 
his appearance was always a disappoint- 
ment. Altgeld was so earnest and sincere, 
so full of his message, that he scorned all 
the tricks of oratory; but still he must 
have been aware that his insignificant 
form and commonplace appearance were 
a perfect foil for the gloomy, melancholy, 
and foreboding note of earnestness that 
riveted his words into a perfect whole. 

Over against the type of oratory repre- 
sented by Altgeld, America has produced 
one orator who fascinated first by his 
personal appearance, next exasperated 
by his imperturbable calm, then disap- 
pointed through a reserve that nothing 
could baffle, and finally won through all 
three more than by his message. This 
man was Roscoe Conkling, he of the Hy- 
perion curls and Jove-like front. 



Hvves of 
©ratot^ 



22 



Xittle Sourness 



perfcles 

an& 
Confelfng 



The chief enemy of Conkling (and he 
had a goodly list) was James G. Blaine, 
who once said of him, "He wins like 
Pericles by his grand and god-like manner 
— and knows it." In appearance and 
manner Pericles and Conkling had much 
in common, but there the parallel stops. 

Pericles appeared only on great occasions. 
We are told that in twenty years he was 
only seen on the streets of Athens once 
a year, and that was in going from his 
house to the Assembly where he made his 
annual report of his stewardship. He 
never made himself cheap. His speeches 
were prepared with great care and must 
have been memorised. Before he spoke, 
he prayed the gods that not a single un- 
worthy word might escape his lips. We 
are told that his manner was so calm, so 
well poised, that during his speech his 
mantle was never disarranged. 

In his speeches, Pericles never cham- 
pioned an unpopular cause — he never led 
a forlorn hope — he never flung reasons into 
the teeth of a mob. His addresses were 
the orderly, gracious words of eulogy and 
congratulation. He won the approval 
of his constituents often against their 



Pericles 



23 



will and did the thing he wished to do, a sfoe 
without giving offence. Thucydides says 
that his words were like the honey of 
Hymettus — persuasion sat upon his lips. 

No man wins his greatest fame in that 
to which he has given most of his time; 
it 's his side issue, the thing he does for 
recreation, his heart's play-spell, that gives 
him immortality. There is too much 
tension in that where his all is staked. 
But in his leisure the pressure is removed, 
his heart is free and judgment may for the 
time take a back seat — there was where 
Dean Swift picked his laurels. Although 
Pericles was the greatest orator of his day, 
yet his business was not oratory. Public 
speaking was to him merely incidental 
and accidental. He doubtless would have 
avoided it if he could — he was a man of 
affairs, a leader of practical men, and he 
was a teacher. He held his place by a 
suavity, gentleness and gracious show of 
reasons unparalleled. In oratory it is 
manner that wins, not words. One virtue 
Pericles had in such generous measure that 
the world yet takes note of it, and that is 
his patience. If interrupted in a speech, 
he gave way and never answered sharply, 



2 4 



Xfttte Sourness 



nor used his position to the other's dis- 
comfiture. In his speeches there was no 
challenge, no vituperation, no irony, no 
arraignment. He assumed that every- 
body was honest, everybody just, and that 
all men were doing what they thought was 
best for themselves and others. His ene- 
mies were not rogues — simply good men 
who were temporarily in error. He im- 
peached no man's motives; but went much 
out of his way to give due credit. 

On one occasion, early in his public 
career, he was berated by a bully in the 
streets. Pericles made no answer, but 
went quietly about his business. The 
man followed him, continuing his abuse, 
followed him clear to the door of his 
house. It being dark, Pericles ordered one 
of his servants to procure a torch, light 
the man home and see that no harm befell 
him. 

The splendour of his intellect and the 
sublime strength of his will are shown in 
that small things did not distress him. 
He was building the Parthenon and making 
Athens the wonder of the world; this was 
enough. 

The Greeks at their best were barbarians ; 



Pericles 



2 5 



at their worst, slaves. The average in- 
telligence among them was low; and the 
idea that they were such a wonderful peo- 
ple has gained a foothold simply because 
they are so far off. The miracle of it all 
is that such sublimely great men as Peri- 
cles, Phidias, Socrates, and Anaxagoras 
should have sprung from such a barbaric 
folk. The men just named were as ex- 
ceptional as was Shakespeare in the reign 
of Elizabeth. That the masses had small 
appreciation of these men is proven in the 
fact that Phidias and Anaxagoras died in 
prison, probably defeating their perse- 
cutors by suicide. Socrates drank the 
cup of hemlock, and Pericles, the one man 
who had made Athens immortal, barely 
escaped banishment and death by diverting 
attention from himself to a foreign war. 
The charge against both Pericles and 
Phidias was that of " sacrilege. " They 
said that Pericles and Phidias should be 
punished because they had placed their 
pictures upon a sacred shield. 

Humanity's job lot was in the saddle, 
and sought to wound Pericles by attacking 
his dearest friends. His old teacher, 
Anaxagoras was made to die; his beloved 



Cbarge of 
Sacrilege 



26 Xtttle Sourness 

son of helper, Phidias, the greatest sculptor the 
world has ever known, suffered a like fate, 
and his wife, Aspasia, was humiliated by 
being dragged to a public trial where the 
eloquence of Pericles alone saved her from 
a malefactor's death: and it is said that 
this was the only time when Pericles lost 
his "Olympian calm." 

The son of Pericles and Aspasia was one 
of ten generals executed because they 
failed to win a certain battle. The scheme 
of beheading unsuccessful soldiers was not 
without its advantages, and in some ways 
is to be commended, but the plan reveals 
the fact that the Greeks had so little faith 
in their leaders that the threat of death 
was deemed necessary to make them do 
their duty. This son of Pericles was de- 
clared illegitimate by law; another law 
was passed declaring him legitimate; and 
finally his head was cut off, all as duly 
provided in the statutes. Does this make 
us wonder what this world would have 
been without its lawmakers ? The par- 
ticular offence of Anaxagoras was that he 
said Jove occasionally sent thunder and 
lightning with no thought of Athens in 
mind. The same subject is up for dis- 



Pericles 



27 



cussion yet, but no special penalty is 
provided by the State as to conclusions. 

The citizens of Greece in the time of 
Pericles were given over to two things 
which were enough to damn any individual 
and any nation — idleness and superstition. 
The drudgery was done by slaves : the idea 
that a free citizen should work was pre- 
posterous: to be useful was a disgrace. 
For a time Pericles dissipated their foolish 
thought, but it kept cropping out. To 
speak disrespectfully of the gods was to 
invite death, and the philosophers who 
dared discuss the powers of nature or refer 
to a natural religion were only safe through 
the fact that their language was usually 
so garlanded with the flowers of poesy 
that the people did not comprehend its 
import. 

Very early in the reign of Pericles a 
present of forty thousand bushels of wheat 
had been sent from the King of Egypt — 
at least it was called a present — probably 
it was an exacted tribute. This wheat 
was to be distributed among the free 
citizens of Athens, and accordingly when 
the cargo arrived, there was a fine scramble 
among the people to show that they were 



Citi3ens 
of ©reece 



28 Xtttle Journeys 



cm^oi* f ree# Everybody produced a certificate 
and demanded wheat. 

Some time before this Pericles had 
caused a law to be passed providing that 
in order to be a citizen a man must be 
descended from a father and mother who 
were both Athenians. This law was aimed 
directly at Themistocles, the predecessor 
of Pericles, whose mother was an alien. 
It is true the mother of Themistocles was 
an alien, but her son was Themistocles. 
The law worked and Themistocles was 
declared to be a bastard and was banished. 
Before unloading our triremes of wheat, 
let the fact be stated that laws aimed at 
individuals are apt to prove boomerangs. 
"Thee should build no dark cells," said 
Elizabeth Fry to the King of France, " for 
thy children may occupy them." Some 
years after Pericles had caused this law 
to be passed defining citizenship, he loved 
a woman who had the misfortune to be 
born at Miletus. According to his own 
law the marriage of Pericles to this woman 
was not legal — she was only his slave, not 
his wife. So finally Pericles had to go 
before the people and ask for the repeal of 
the law that he had made, in order that his 



Pericles 



29 



own children might be made legitimate. 
Little men in shovel hats and knee-breeches 
who hotly fume against the sin of a man 
marrying his deceased wife's sister are 
usually men whose wives are not deceased, 
and who have no sisters. 

The wheat arrived at the Piraeus, and 
the citizens jammed the docks. The slaves 
wore sleeveless tunics. The Greeks were 
not much given to that absurd plan of 
cutting off heads — they simply cut off 
sleeves. This meant that the man was a 
worker — the rest affected sleeves so long 
that they could not work, somewhat after 
the order of the Chinese nobility who wear 
their fingernails so long they cannot use 
their hands. " To kill a bird is to lose it, " 
said Thoreau. "To kill a man is to lose 
him," said the Greeks. 

" You should have your sleeves cut off, " 
said some of the citizens to others, with a 
bit of acerbity, as they crowded the docks 
for their wheat. The talk increased — it 
became louder. 

Finally, it was proposed that the dis- 
tribution of wheat should be deferred until 
every man had proved his pedigree. The 
ayes had it. 



Sleeveless 
Uunlcs 



3° 



Xtttle Sourness 



irbe 
freest 
Country 



The result was that on close scrutiny, 
five thousand supposed citizens had a blot 
on their 'scutcheon. The property of these 
five thousand men was immediately con- 
fiscated and the men sold into slavery. 
The total number of free men, women, and 
children in the city of Athens was about 
seventy-five thousand, and of slaves or 
helots about the same, making the total 
population of the city about one hundred 
and fifty thousand. 

We have heard so' much of "the glory 
that was Greece, and the grandeur that 
was Rome," that we are, at times, apt to 
think the world is making progress back- 
ward. But let us all stand erect and lift 
up our hearts in thankfulness that we live 
in the freest country the world has ever 
known. Wisdom is not monopolised by 
a few; power is not concentrated in the 
hands of a tyrant; knowledge need not 
express itself in cipher; to work is no 
longer a crime or a disgrace. 

We have superstition yet, but it is 
toothless : we can say our say without fear 
of losing our heads or sleeves. We may 
lose a few customers, and some subscribers 
may cancel, but we are not in danger of 



Pericles 



3 1 



banishment, and that attenuated form of 
ostracism which consists in neglecting to 
invite the offender to a four-o'clock-tea, 
has no terrors. 

Bigotry is abroad, but it has no longer 
the power to throttle science; the empty 
threat of future punishment and the offer 
of reward, are nothing to us, since we 
perceive they are offered by men who 
have not these things to give. The idea 
of war and conquest is held by many, but 
concerning it we voice our thoughts and 
write our views ; and the fact that we per- 
ceive and point out what we believe are 
fallacies, and brand the sins of idleness 
and extravagance, is proof that light is 
breaking in the East. If we can profit by 
the good that was in Greece and avoid the 
bad, we have the raw material here, if 
properly used, to make her glory fade 
into forgetfulness by comparison. 

Do not ask that the days of Greece shall 
come again — we now know that to live by 
the sword is to die by the sword, and the 
nation that builds on conquest builds on 
sand. We want no splendour fashioned by 
slaves — no labour driven by the lash, or 
lured on through superstitious threat of 



Xigbt is 
Breaking 



3 2 



Xittie 3ourneps 



Comrabee 



punishment and offer of reward : we recog- 
nise that to own slaves is to be one. 

Ten men built Athens — the passion 
for beauty that these men had may be 
ours, their example may inspire us, but to 
live their lives — we will none of them! 
Our lives are better — the best time the 
world has ever seen is now; and a better 
yet is sure to be. The night is past and 
gone — the light is breaking in the East. 

Womanhood was not held in high esteem 
in Greece. To be sure, barbaric Sparta 
made a bold stand for equality, and almost 
instituted a gynocracy, but the usual idea 
was that a woman's opinion was not worth 
considering. Hence the caricaturists of 
the day made sly sport of the love of 
Pericles and Aspasia. These two were 
intellectual equals, comrades, and that all 
of Pericles' public speeches were rehearsed 
to her, as his enemies averred, is probably 
true. " Aspasia has no time for society; 
she is busy writing a speech for her lord, " 
said Aristophanes. Socrates used to visit 
Aspasia, and he gave out as his opinion 
that Aspasia wrote the sublime ode de- 
livered by Pericles on the occasion of his 
eulogy on the Athenian dead. The popu- 



Pericles 



33 



lar mind could not possibly comprehend 
how a great man could defer to a woman 
in important matters, and she be at once 
his wife, counsellor, comrade, friend. Soc- 
rates, who had been taught by antithesis, 
understood it. 

The best minds of our day behold that 
Pericles was as sublimely great in his love 
affairs as he was in his work as architect 
and statesman. Life is a whole, and 
every man works his love up into life — 
his life is revealed in his work, and his love 
is mirrored in his life. For myself I cannot 
see why the Parthenon may not have been 
a monument to a great and sublime passion 
and the statue of Athena, its chief orna- 
ment, be the sacred > symbol of a great 
woman greatly loved. 

So far as can be found, the term of 
"courtesan" applied by the mob to Aspa- 
sia, came from the fact that she was not 
legally married to Pericles, and for no 
other reason. That their union was not 
legal was owing to the simple fact that 
Pericles, early in his career had caused a 
law to be passed making marriage between 
an Athenian and an alien morganatic: 
very much as in England, for a time, the 



Great in 
%ove 



34 Xittle Journeys 



Dome 



children of a marriage where one parent 
was a Catholic and the other Protestant 
were declared by the State to be illegiti- 
mate. The act of Pericles in spreading a 
net for his rival and getting caught in it 
himself, is a beautiful example of the 
truth of a bucolic maxim, "Chickens most 
generally come home to roost." 

Thucydides says that for thirty years 
Pericles never dined away from home 
but once. He kept out of crowds, and was 
very seldom seen at public gatherings. 
The idea held by many was that a man who 
thus preferred his home and the society of 
a woman, was either silly or bad, or both. 
Socrates, for instance, never went home 
as long as there was any other place to go, 
which reminds us of a certain American 
statesman who met a friend on the street, 
the hour being near midnight. " Where 
are you going, Bill?" asked the statesman. 
"Home," said .Bill. "What!" said the 
statesman, "have n't you any place to go 
to?" The Athenian men spent their spare 
time in the streets and market places — this 
was to them what the daily paper is to us. 

In his home life, Pericles was simple, 
unpretentious, and free from all extra va- 



Pericles 



35 



gance. No charge could ever be brought 
against him that he was wasting the public 
money for himself — the beauty he ma- 
terialised was for all. He held no court, 
had no carriages, equipage, or guards; 
wore no insignia of office, and had no title 
save that of "first citizen" given him by 
the people. He is the supreme type of a 
man who, though holding no public office, 
yet ruled like a monarch and best of all, 
ruled his own spirit. There is no govern- 
ment so near perfect as that of an absolute 
monarchy — where the monarch is wise and 
just. 

Greece is a beautiful dream. Dreams 
do not endure, yet they are a part of life 
no less than the practical deeds of the day. 
The glory of Greece could not last; its 
limit was thirty years — one generation. 
The splendour of Athens was built on tribute 
and conquest, and the lesson of it all lies 
in this: for thirty years Pericles turned 
the revenues of war into art, beauty, and 
usefulness. 

England spent more in her vain efforts 
to subjugate two little South African re- 
publics than Pericles spent in making 
Athens the wonder of the world. If Cham- 



B JBeautfs 
ful 2>ream 



3 6 Xittle Journeys 



irabat berlain and Salisbury had been the avatars 
tt^e of Pericles and Phidias, they would have 
seen use d ^he n { ne hundred millions of dollars 
wasted in South Africa, and the services 
of those three hundred thousand men, and 
done in England, aye! or done in South 
Africa, a work of harmony and undying 
beauty such as this tired earth had not 
seen since Phidias wrought and Pindar 
sang. 

And another thing, the thirty thousand 
Englishmen sacrificed to the God of war, 
and the ten thousand Boers, dead in a 
struggle for what they thought was right 
would now nearly all be alive and well 
rejoicing in the contemplation of a harmony 
unparalleled and unsurpassed. 

During the last year, the United States 
has appropriated four hundred million 
dollars for War and war apparatus. Since 
1897, we have expended about three times 
the sum named for war and waste. If 
there had been among us a Pericles who 
could have used this vast treasure in 
irrigating the lands of the West and build- 
ing manual training schools where boys and 
girls would be taught to do useful work 
and make beautiful things, we could have 



Pericles 



37 



made ancient Greece pale into forget- 
fulness beside the beauty we would 
manifest. 

When Pericles came into power there 
was a union of the Greek states, formed 
with intent to stand against Persia, the 
common foe. A treasure had been accumu- 
lated at Delos by Themistocles, the 
predecessor of Pericles, to use in case of 
emergency. 

The ambition of Themistocles was to 
make Greece commercially supreme. She 
must be the one maritime power of the 
world. All the outlying islands of the 
^Egean Sea were pouring their tithes into 
Athens and Delos that they might have 
protection from the threatening hordes 
of Persia. 

Pericles saw that war was not imminent, 
and under the excuse of increased safety he 
got the accumulated treasure moved from 
Delos to Athens. The amount of this 
emergency fund, to us, would be insignifi- 
cant — a mere matter of say two million 
dollars. Pericles used this money, or a 
portion of it at least, for beautifying 
Athens, and he did his wondrous work 
by maintaining a moderate war tax in a 



aSeautif^s 

ing Htbens 



38 



SLtttie Journeys 



2>eatb of 
Pericles 



time of peace, using the revenue for some- 
thing better than destruction and vaunting 
pride. 

But Pericles could not forever hold out 
against the mob at Athens, and the hordes 
abroad. He might have held the hordes 
at bay, but disloyalty struck at him at 
home — his best helpers were sacrificed to 
superstition — his beloved helper Phidias 
was dead. War came — the population 
from the country flocked within the walls 
of Athens for protection. The pent up 
people grew restless, sick — pestilence fol- 
lowed and in ministering to their needs, 
trying to infuse courage into his whimper- 
ing countrymen, bearing up under the 
disloyalty of his own sons, planning to 
meet the lesser foe without, Pericles grew 
a-weary, nature flagged, and he was dead. 

From his death dates the decline of 
Greece — she has been twenty-five centuries 
dying and is not dead even yet. To 
Greece we go for consolation, and in her 
armless and headless marbles we see the 
perfect type of what men and women yet 
may be. Copies of her ''Winged Victory" 
are upon ten thousand pedestals pointing 
us the way. 



Pericles 



39 



England has her Chamberlain, Salisbury, 
Lord Bobs, Buller, and Kitchener ; America 
has her rough riders who bawl and boast, 
her financiers, and her promoters. In 
every city of America there is a Themis- 
tocles who can organise a " Trust of Delos" 
and make the outlying islands pay tithes 
and tribute through an indirect tax on 
this and that. In times of alleged danger 
all the men of Kansas flock to arms and 
offer their lives in the interest of outraged 
humanity. 

These things are well, but where is the 
Pericles who can inspire men to give in 
times of peace what all are willing to give 
in the delirium of war — that is to say, 
themselves? 

We can Funstonise men into fighting 
machines; we can set half a nation licking 
stamps for strife ; but where is the Pericles 
who can enthuse the populace into paving 
streets, building good roads, planting trees, 
constructing waterways across desert sands, 
and crowning each rock-ribbed hill with 
a temple consecrated to love and beauty! 
We take our mules from their free prairies, 
huddle them in foul transports and send 
them across wide oceans to bleach their 



THUantefc— 
a Pericles 



4o 



Xittle Journeys 



"Cmantefc— 
m Reticles 



bones upon the burning veld; but where 
is the man who can inspire our mules with 
a passion to do their work, add their mite 
to building a temple and follow the pro- 
cession unled, undriven — with neither curb 
nor lash — happy in the fond idea that they 
are a part of all the seething life that throbs, 
pulses, and works for a universal good. 

11 1 never caused a single Athenian to 
wear mourning, " truthfully said Pericles 
with his dying breath. Can the present 
prime ministers of earth say as much? 
That is the kind of leader America most 
needs to-day — a man who can do his work 
and make no man, woman, or child wear 
crape. 

The time is ripe for him — we await his 
coming. 

We are sick of plutocrats who struggle 
and scheme but for themselves: we turn 
with loathing from the concrete selfishness 
of Newport and Saratoga; the clatter of 
arms and the blare of battle trumpets in 
time of peace is hideous to our ears — we 
want no wealth gained from conquest and 
strife. 

Ours is the richest country the world 
has ever known — Greece was a beggar 



Pericles 



41 



compared with Iowa and Illinois, where 
nothing but honest effort is making small 
cities great. But we need a Pericles who 
shall inspire us to work for truth, harmony, 
and beauty, a beauty wrought for ourselves, 
and a love that shall perform such miracles, 
that they will minister to the millions yet 
unborn. We need a Pericles! We need 
a Pericles! 



TOUntefc- 
B Pericles 



MARK ANTONY 



43 



45 



It is not long ago, my Antony, since, with these 
hands I buried thee. Alas! they were then free, 
but thy Cleopatra is now a prisoner, attended by 
guard, lest, in the transports of her grief, she should 
disfigure this captive body, which is reserved to 
adorn the triumph over thee. These are the last 
offerings, the last honours she can pay thee ; for she 
is now to be conveyed to a distant country. Nothing 
could part us while we lived, but in death we are 
to be divided. Thou, though a Roman, liest buried 
in Egypt; and I, an Egyptian, must be interred in 
Italy, the only favour I shall receive from thy 
country. Yet, if the Gods of Rome have power or 
mercy left, (for surely those of Egypt have forsaken 
us) let them not suffer me to be led in living triumph 
to thy disgrace! No! hide me, hide me with thee 
in the grave; for life, since thou hast left it, has been 
misery to me. 

Plutarch. 



Uo Bnton£ 



47 



THE sole surviving daughter of the great 
King Ptolemy of Egypt, Cleopatra, 
was seventeen years old when her father 
died. 

By his will, the King made her joint heir 
to the throne with her brother Ptolemy, 
several years her junior. And according 
to the custom, not unusual among royalty 
at that time, it was provided that Ptolemy 
should become the husband of Cleopatra. 
She was a woman — her brother a child. 
She had intellect, ambition, talent. She 
knew the history of her own country, and 
that of Assyria, Greece, and Rome; and 
all the written languages of the world were 
to her familiar. She had been educated 
by the philosophers, who had brought 
from Greece the science of Pythagoras and 
Plato. Her companions had been men— 



Cleopatra 



4 8 



Xtttle Journeys 



B XKfloman 
Still 



not women, or nurses, or pious, pedantic 
priests. 

Through the veins of her young body 
pulsed and leaped life plus. 

She abhorred the thought of an alliance 
with her weak-chinned brother; and the 
ministers of state who suggested another 
husband, as a compromise, were dismissed 
with a look. They said she was intract- 
able, contemptuous, unreasonable, and 
was scheming for the sole possession of 
the throne. She was not to be diverted 
even by ardent courtiers who were sent to 
her, and who lay in wait ready with amor- 
ous sighs — she scorned them all. 

Yet she was a woman still, and in her 
dreams she saw the coming prince. 

She was banished from Alexandria. 

A few friends followed her, and an army 
was formed to force from the enemy her 
rights. 

But other things were happening — a 
Roman army came leisurely drifting in with 
the tide and disembarked at Alexandria. 
The Great Caesar himself was in command 
— a mere holiday, he said. He had in- 
tended to join the land forces of Mark 
Antony and help crush the rebellious 






A iifiM 



n£ mot 1 




Xitti 






» TSloman 



I of 
Mark Antony 
From an old copper print 



the 



rtDarfe Bntons 



49 



Pompey, but Antony had done the trick 
alone, and only a few days before word 
had come that Pompey was dead. 

Caesar knew that civil war was on in 
Alexandria, and being near he sailed 
slowly in, sending messengers ahead warn- 
ing both sides to lay down their arms. 

With him was the far-famed invincible 
Tenth Legion that had ravished Gaul. 
Caesar wanted to rest his men, and inci- 
dentally, to reward them. They took 
possession of the city without a blow. 

Cleopatra's troops laid down their arms, 
but Ptolemy's refused. They were sim- 
ply chased beyond the walls, and their 
punishment for a time deferred. 

Caesar took possession of the palace of 
the King, and his soldiers accommodated 
themselves in the houses, public build- 
ings, and temples as best they could. 

Cleopatra asked for a personal inter- 
view so as to present her cause. Caesar 
declined to meet her — he understood the 
trouble — many such cases he had seen. 
Claimants for thrones were not new to 
him. Where two parties quarrelled, both 
were right — or wrong — it really mattered 
little. It is absurd to quarrel — still more 



Zbe 

doming of 

Caesar 



5o 



SLittle Sourness 



XTbe Jfattb== 
ful Slave 



foolish to fight. Caesar was a man of 
peace, and to keep the peace he would 
appoint one of his generals governor, and 
make Egypt a Roman colony. In the 
meantime, he would rest a week or two, 
with the kind permission of the Alexan- 
drians, and write upon his "Commen- 
taries" — no, he would not see either 
Cleopatra or Ptolemy — any information 
desired he would get through his trusted 
emissaries. 

In the service of Cleopatra was a Sicilian 
slave who had been her personal servant 
since she was a little girl. This man's 
name was Appolidorus — a man of giant 
stature and imposing mien. Ten years 
before his tongue had been torn out as a 
token that as he was to attend a queen he 
should tell no secrets. 

Appolidorus had but one thought in 
life, and that was to defend his gracious 
queen. He slept at the door of Cleopatra's 
tent, a naked sword at his side, held in 
his clenched and brawny hand. 

And now behold at dusk of day the grim 
and silent Appolidorus, carrying upon his 
giant shoulders a large and curious rug, 
rolled up and tied round at either end 



/©ark Hntonp 



5 1 



with ropes. He approaches the palace of 
the King, and at the guarded gate hands 
a note to the officer in charge. This note 
gives information to the effect that a cer- 
tain patrician citizen of Alexandria, being 
glad that the gracious Caesar had deigned 
to visit Egypt, sends him the richest 
rug that can be woven, done, in fact, 
by his wife and daughters and held 
against this day, awaiting Rome's great- 
est son. 

The officer reads the note, and orders a 
soldier to accept the gift and carry it within 
— presents were constantly arriving. A 
sign from the dumb giant makes the 
soldier stand back — the present is for 
Caesar and can be delivered only in person. 
"Lead and I will follow," were the words 
done in stern pantomime. 

The officer laughs, sends the note inside, 
and the messenger soon returning, sig- 
nifies that the present is acceptable and 
the slave bearing it shall be shown in. 
Appolidorus shifts his burden to the other 
shoulder, and follows the soldier through 
the gate, up the marble steps along the 
splendid hallway lighted by flaring torches 
and lined with reclining Roman soldiers. 



B Curious 
1Rug 



5 2 



SLfttle Journeps 



Ube 
•ClnroIIeJ> 



At a door they pause an instant, there is 
a whispered word — they enter. 

The room is furnished as becomes the 
room that is the private library of the King 
of Egypt. In one corner, seated at the 
table, pen in hand, sits a man of middle 
age, pale, clean shaven, with hair close- 
cropped. His dress is not that of a soldier 
— it is the flowing white robe of a Roman 
priest. Only one servant attends this 
man, a secretary, seated near, who rises 
and explains that the present is acceptable 
and shall be deposited on the floor. 

The pale man at the table looks up, 
smiles a tired smile and murmurs in a per- 
functory way his thanks. 

Appolidorus having laid his burden on 
the floor, kneels to untie the ropes. 

The secretary explains that he need not 
trouble, pray bear thanks and again thanks 
to his master — he need not tarry! 

The dumb man on his knees neither 
hears nor heeds. The rug is unrolled. 

From out the roll a woman leaps lightly 
to her feet — a beautiful young woman of 
twenty. 

She stands there, poised, defiant, gazing 
at the pale-faced man seated at the table. 



/IDarft Britons 



53 



He is not surprised — he never was. One 
might have supposed he received all his 
visitors in this manner. 

"Well?" he says in a quiet way, a half 
smile parting his thin lips. 

The woman's breast heaves with tumul- 
tuous emotion — just an instant. She 
speaks, and there is no tremor in her tones. 
Her voice is low, smooth, and scarcely 
audible: "I am Cleopatra." 

The man at the desk lays down his pen, 
leans back and gently nods his head, as 
much as to say, indulgently, "Yes, my 
child, I hear — go on!" 

"I am Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and 
I would speak with thee alone." 

She paused; then raising one jewelled 
arm motions to Appolidorus that he shall 
withdraw. With a similar motion, the 
man at the desk signifies the same to his 
astonished secretary. 



Ube ©ueen 
of EaEPt 



Appolidorus went down the long hall- 
way, down the stone steps and waited at 
the outer gate amid the throng of soldiers. 
They questioned him, gibed him, railed 
at him, but they got no word in reply. 

He waited — he waited an hour, two — 



54 



SLittle Journeys 



and then came a messenger with a note 
written on a slip of parchment. The 
words ran thus: "Well beloved 'Dorus: 
Vent, vidi, vici\ Go fetch my maids, also 
all of our personal belongings." 



II 



STANDING alone by the slashed and 
stiffened corpse of Julius Caesar, Mark 
Antony says: 

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
That ever lived in the tide of times. 

Caesar had two qualities that mark the 
man of supreme power: he was gentle and 
he was firm. 

To be gentle, generous, lenient, forgiving, 
and yet never relinquish the vital thing — 
this is to be great. 

To know when to be generous, and when 
firm — this is wisdom. 

The first requisite in ruling others is to 
rule one's own spirit. 

The suavity, moderation, dignity, and 
wise diplomacy of Caesar led him by sure 
and safe steps from a lowly clerkship to 
positions of gradually increasing responsi- 
bility. At thirty-seven he was elected 



55 



(Sreatness 



56 



Xittle Journeps 



Hbe ©reats 
eat /Iftan 
fn 1Rome 



Pontifex Maximus — the head of the State 
religion. 

Between Pagan Rome and Christian 
Paganism there is small choice — all State 
religions are very much alike. Caesar 
was Pope: and no State religion since his 
time has been an improvement on that of 
Cassar. 

In his habits Cassar was ascetic — a 
scholar by nature. He was tall, slender, 
and in countenance sad. For the intellect 
nature had given him, she had taken toll 
by cheating him in form and feature. He 
was deliberate, and of few words — he 
listened in a way that always first com- 
plimented the speaker and then dis- 
concerted him. 

By birth he was a noble, and by adoption 
one of the people. He was both plebeian 
and patrician. 

His military experience had been but 
slight, though creditable, and his public 
addresses were so few that no one claimed 
he was an orator. He had done nothing 
of special importance and yet the feeling 
was everywhere that he was the greatest 
man in Rome. The nobles feared him, 
trembling at thought of his displeasure. 



/IDarfe Bntons 



57 



The people loved him — he called them, 
"My children." 

Caesar was head of the Church, but politi- 
cally there were two other strong leaders 
in Rome, Pompey and Crassus. These 
two men were rich, and each was the head 
of a large number of followers whom he 
had armed as militia "for the defence of 
State. ' ' Caesar was poor in purse and could 
not meet them in their own way even 
if so inclined. He saw the danger of 
these rival factions — strife between them 
was imminent — street fights were com- 
mon, and it would only require a spark 
to ignite the tinder. 

Cassar the Pontiff — the man of peace — 
saw a way to secure safety for the State 
from these two men who had armed their 
rival legions to protect it. 

To secure this end he would crush them 
both. 

The natural way to do this would have 
been to join forces with the party he 
deemed the stronger, and down the oppo- 
sition. But this done the leader with 
whom he had joined forces would still have 
to be dealt with. 

Caesar made peace between Pompey and 



Cresar tbe 
pontiff 



58 



Xittle Journeys 



troubles 
some ©aul 



Crassus by joining with them, forming a 
Triumvirate. 

This was one of the greatest strokes of 
statecraft ever devised. It made peace 
at home — averted civil war — cemented 
rival factions. 

When three men join forces, make no 
mistake, power is never equally divided. 

Before the piping times of peace could 
pall, a foreign war diverted attention 
from approaching difficulties at home. 

The Gauls were threatening — they were 
always threatening — war could be had 
with them any time by just pushing out 
upon them. To the south, Sicily, Greece, 
Persia, and Egypt had been exploited — 
fame and empire lay in the dim and un- 
known North. 

Only a Csesar could have known this. 
He had his colleagues make him governor 
of Gaul. Gaul was a troublesome place 
to be in, and they were quite willing he 
should go there. For a priest to go among 
the fighting Gauls — they smiled and 
stroked their chins! Gaul had definite 
boundaries on the South — the Rubicon 
marked the line — but on the North it was 
without limit. Real estate owners own 



/IDarft Untonv 59 

as high in the air and as deep in the earth ©ante 
as they wish to go. Caesar alone guessed 
the greatness of Gaul. 

Under pretence of protecting Rome from 
a threatened invasion he secured the strong- 
est legions of Pompey and Crassus. Com- 
bining them into one army he led them 
northward to such conquest and victory 
as the world had never seen before. 

It is not for me to tell the history of 
Caesar's Gallic wars. Suffice it to say that 
in eight years he had penetrated what is 
now Switzerland, France, Germany, and 
England. Everywhere he left monuments 
of his greatness in the way of splendid 
highways, baths, aqueducts, and temples. 
Colonies of settlers from the packed popu- 
lation of Rome followed the victors. 

An army left to itself after conquest will 
settle down to riot and mad surfeit, but 
this man kept his forces strong by keeping 
them at work — discipline was never re- 
laxed, yet there was such kindness and 
care for his men that no mutiny ever made 
head. 

Caesar became immensely rich — his debts 
were now all paid — the treasure returned 
to Rome did the general coffers fill, his 



6o 



Xittle Journeys 



Caesar 

Crosses tbe 

tftubicon 



name and fame were blazoned on the 
Roman streets. 

When he returned he knew, and had 
always known, it would be as a con- 
quering hero. Pompey and Crassus did 
not wish Caesar to return. He was still 
governor of Gaul and should stay 
there. They made him governor — he 
must do as they required — they sent him 
his orders. 

" The die is cast, " said Caesar on reading 
the message. Immediately he crossed 
the Rubicon. 

An army fights for a leader, not a cause. 
The leader's cause is theirs. Caesar had 
led his men to victory, and he had done it 
with a comparatively small degree of 
danger. He never made an attack until 
every expedient for peace was exhausted. 
He sent word to each barbaric tribe to 
come in and be lovingly annexed, or else 
be annexed willy nilly. He won, but 
through diplomacy where it was possible. 
When he did strike, it was quickly, unex- 
pectedly, and hard. The priest was as 
great a strategist as a diplomat. He par- 
doned his opposers when they would lay 
down their arms — he wanted success, not 



/IDarfe Bntons 



61 



vengeance. But always he gave his sol- 
diers the credit. 

They were loyal to him. 

Pompey and Crassus could not oppose 
a man like this — they fled. 

Caesar's most faithful and trusted col- 
league was Mark Antony, seventeen years 
his junior — a slashing, dashing, audacious, 
exuberant fellow. 

Caesar became dictator, really king or 
emperor. He ruled with moderation, 
wisely and well. He wore the purple robe 
of authority, but refused the crown. He 
was honoured, revered, beloved. The habit 
of the pontiff still clung to him — he called 
the people, "My children." 

The imperturbable calm of the man of 
God was upon him — his courage was unim- 
peachable, but caution preserved him from 
personal strife. That he could ever be 
approached by one and all was his pride. 

But clouds were beginning to gather. 

He had pardoned his enemies, but they 
had not forgiven him. 

There were whisperings that he was 
getting ready to assume the ofhce of 
emperor. At a certain parade when Caesar 
sat upon the raised seat, reviewing the 



ClOU&B 

(Batbec 



62 



SLittie Journeys 



/IDurmura 
tngs 



passing procession, Mark Antony, the 
exuberant, left his place in the ranks, and 
climbing to the platform had tried to 
crown his beloved leader with laurel. 
Cassar had smilingly declined the honour, 
amid the plaudits of the crowd. 

Some said this whole episode was planned 
to test the temper of the populace. 

Another cause of offence was that some 
time before, Caesar had spent several 
months at Alexandria at the court of 
Cleopatra. And now the young and beau- 
tiful queen had arrived in Rome, and 
Cassar had appeared with her at public 
gatherings. She had with her a boy, two 
years old, by name Caesario. 

This Egyptian child, said the con- 
spirators, was to be the future Emperor 
of Rome. To meet this accusation Cassar 
made his will and provided that his grand- 
nephew, Octavius Cassar, should be his 
adopted son and heir. But this was de- 
clared a ruse. 

The murmurings grew louder. 

Sixty senators combined to assassinate 
Cassar — the high position of these men 
made them safe — by standing together 
they would be secure. 



rtDarfc Bntons 



Caesar was warned, but declined to take 
the matter seriously. He would neither 
arm himself nor allow guards to attend him. 

On the 15th of March, 44 B. C, as Caesar 
entered the senate the rebels crowded 
upon him under the pretence of handing 
him a petition, and at a sign fell upon him. 
Twenty-three of the conspirators got close 
enough to send their envious daggers home. 

Brutus dipped his sword in the flowing 
blood, and waving the weapon aloft cried, 
" Liberty is restored!" 

Two days later, Mark Antony standing 
by the dead body of his beloved chief, 
sadly mused: 

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
That ever lived in the tide of times. 



Ube foee 
of flBarcb 



6 4 



III 



Hn "kigb 
©ffices 



C^SAR died aged fifty-six. Mark An- 
tony, his executor, occupying the office 
next in importance, was thirty-nine. 

In point of physique, Antony far sur- 
passed Caesar: they were the same height, 
but Antony was heroic in stature and 
carriage, muscular, and athletic. His face 
was comely — his nose large and straight, 
his eyes set wide apart ; his manner martial. 
If he lacked in intellect, in appearance he 
held averages good. 

Antony had occupied the high offices 
of quaestor and tribune, the first calling 
for literary ability, the second for that of 
an orator. Caesar, the wise and diplo- 
matic, had chosen Mark Antony as his 
Secretary of State on account of his pe- 
culiar fitness, especially in representing 
the government at public functions. An- 
tony had a handsome presence, a gracious 



/IDarfe Hnton£ 



65 



tongue, and was a skilled and ready writer. 
Caesar himself was too great a man to be 
much in evidence. 

In passing, it is well to note that all the 
tales as to the dissipation and profligacy 
of Mark Antony in his early days come 
from the "Philippics" of Cicero, who made 
the mistake of executing Lentulus, the 
stepfather of Mark Antony, and then 
felt called upon forever to condemn the 
entire family. Philippics are always a 
form of self -vindication. 

However it need not be put forward that 
Mark Antony was a paragon of virtue — a 
man who has been successively and suc- 
cessfully soldier, politician, lawyer, judge, 
rhetorician, and diplomat is what he 
is. 

Rome was the ruler of the world : Caesar 
was the undisputed greatest man of Rome : 
and Mark Antony was the right hand of 
Caesar. 

At the decisive battle of Pharsalia, 
Caesar had chosen Mark Antony to lead the 
left wing while he himself led the right. 
More than once Mark Antony had stopped 
the Roman army in its flight and had 
turned defeat into victory. In the battle 



Ubc IRCgbt 

Ibano of 

Caesar 



66 



Xfttle 3ourneps 



with Aristobulus he was the first to scale 
the wall. 

His personal valour was beyond cavil — 
he had distinguished himself in every 
battle in which he had taken part. 

It was the first intent of the conspirators 
that Caesar and Antony should die to- 
gether, but the fear was that the envious 
hate of the people toward Caesar would be 
neutralised by the love the soldiers bore 
both Caesar and Antony. So they counted 
on the cupidity and ambition of Antony 
to keep the soldiers in subjection. 

Antony was kept out of the plot, and 
when the blow was struck he was detained 
at his office by pretended visitors who 
wanted a hearing. 

When news came to him that Caesar was 
dead, he fled, thinking that massacre 
would follow. But the next day he re- 
turned and held audience with the rebels. 

Antony was too close a follower of 
Caesar to depart from his methods. Natur- 
ally he was hasty and impulsive, but now, 
everything he did was in imitation of the 
great man he had loved. 

Caesar always pardoned. Antony lis- 
tened to the argument of Brutus that 



flDarfe Bntons 



67 



Caesar had been removed for the good of 
Rome. Brutus proposed that Antony 
should fill Caesar's place as Consul or nomi- 
nal dictator; and in return Brutus and 
Cassius were to be made governors of 
certain provinces — amnesty was to be 
given to all who were in the plot. 

Antony agreed, and at once the Assembly 
was called and a law passed tendering 
pardon to all concerned — thus was civil 
war averted. Caesar was dead, but Rome 
was safe. 

The funeral of Caesar was to occur the 
next day. It was to be the funeral of a 
private citizen — the honour of a public 
funeral pyre was not to be his. Brutus 
would say a few words, and Antony, as 
the closest friend of the dead, would also 
speak — the body would be buried and all 
would go on in peace. 

Antony had done what he had because 
it was the only thing he could do. To be 
successor of Caesar filled his ambition to 
the brim — but to win the purple by a 
compromise with the murderers! It 
turned his soul to gall. 

At the funeral of Caesar the Forum was 
crowded to every corner with a subdued, 



ffuneral of 

Casac 



68 



Xittle Sourness 



Hntons's 

©cation 



dejected, breathless throng. People spoke 
in whispers — no one felt safe — the air 
was stifled and poisoned with fear and 
fever. 

Brutus spoke first: we do not know his 
exact words, but we know the temper of 
the man, and his mental attitude. 

Mark Antony had kept the peace, but 
if he could only feel that the people were 
with him he would drive the sixty plotting 
conspirators before him like chaff before 
the whirlwind. 

He would then be Caesar's successor 
because he had avenged his death. 

The orator must show no passion until 
he has aroused passion in the hearer — ora- 
tory is a collaboration. The orator is the 
active principle, the audience the passive. 

Mark Antony, the practised orator, 
begins with simple propositions to which 
all agree. Gradually he sends out quiver- 
ing feelers ; the response returns ; he con- 
tinues, the audience answers back, he 
plays upon their emotion, and soon only 
one mind is supreme, and that is his own. 

We know what he did and how he did it, 
but his words are lost. Shakespeare, the 
man of imagination, supplies them. 



flDarfe Bntonp 



69 



The plotters have made their defence — 
it is accepted. 

Antony, too, defends them — he repeats 
that they are honourable men, and to reiter- 
ate that a man is honourable is to admit 
that possibly he is not. The act of defence 
implies guilt, and to turn defence into 
accusation through pity and love for the 
one wronged is the supreme task of oratory. 

From love of Caesar to hate for Brutus 
and Cassius is but a step — panic takes the 
place of confidence among the conspirators 
— they slink away. The spirit of the mob 
is uppermost — the only honour left to Caesar 
is the funeral pyre. Benches are torn up, 
windows pulled from their fastenings, every 
available combustible is added to the pile, 
and the body of Caesar — he alone calm and 
untroubled amid all this mad mob — is 
placed upon this improvised throne of death. 
Torches flare, and the pile is soon in flames. 

Night comes on, and the same torches 
that touched to red the funeral couch of 
Caesar, hunt out the houses of the con- 
spirators who killed him. 

But the conspirators have fled. 

One man is supreme, and that man is 
Mark Antony. 



Supreme 



7o 



IV 



Zbc ff>et 
of 1Rome 



TO maintain a high position requires 
the skill of a harlequin. It is an 
abnormality that any man should long 
tower above his fellows. 

For a few short weeks, Mark Antony 
was the pride and pet of Rome. He gave 
fetes, contests, processions and enter- 
tainments of lavish kind. " These things 
are pleasant, but they have to be paid 
for," said Cicero. 

Then came from Illyria, Octavius Caesar, 
aged nineteen, the adopted son of Caesar 
the Great, and claimed his patrimony. 

Antony laughed at the stripling, and 
thought to bribe him with a fete in his 
honour and a promise, and in the meantime 
a clerkship where there was no work to 
speak of and pay in inverse ratio. 

The boy was weak in body and common- 
place in mind — in way of culture he had 



flDarfe Bntons 



71 



been overtrained. — but he was stubborn. 

Mark Antony lived so much on the 
surface of things, that he never imagined 
there was a strong party pushing the 
" young Augustus" forward. 

Finally Antony became impatient with 
the importuning young man, and threat- 
ened to send him on his way with a guard 
at his heels to see that he did not return. 

At once a storm broke over the head of 
Antony — it came from a seemingly clear 
sky — Antony had to flee, not Octavius. 

The soldiers of the Great Caesar had 
been remembered in his will with seventy- 
five drachmas to every man, and the will 
must stand or fall as an entirety. Caesar 
had provided that Octavius should be his 
successor — this will must be respected. 
Cicero was the man who made the argu- 
ment. The army was with the will of the 
dead man, rather than with the ambition 
of the living. 

Antony fled, but gathered a goodly 
army as he went, intending to return. 

After some months of hard times, passion 
cooled, and Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, 
the chief general of Octavius, met in the 
field for consultation. Swayed by the 



B Storm 
JBreafea 



72 



Xtttle Journeys 



B Urium= 
virate 



eloquence of Antony who was still full of 
the precedents of the Great Caesar, a Tri- 
umvirate was formed, and Antony, Octav- 
ius, and Lepidus coolly sat down to divide 
the world among them. 

One strong argument that Antony used 
for the necessity of this partnership was, 
that Brutus and Cassius were just across 
in Macedonia, waiting and watching for 
the time when civil war would so weaken 
Rome that they could step in and claim 
their own. 

Brutus and his fellow-conspirators must 
be punished. 

In two years from that time, they had 
performed their murderous deed; Cassius 
was killed at his own request by his ser- 
vant, and Brutus had fallen on his sword 
to escape the sword of Mark Antony. 

In the stress of defeat and impending 
calamity, Mark Antony was a great man: 
he could endure anything but success. 

But now there were no more enemies to 
conquer: unlike Caesar the Great he was 
no scholar, so books were not a solace; 
to build up and beautify a great state did 
not occur to him. His camp was turned 
into a place of mad riot and disorder. Har- 



flDarfe Bntons 



73 



pers, dancers, buffoons, and all the sodden 
splendour of the East made the nights echo 
with " shouts, sacrifices, songs, and groans." 

When Antony entered Ephesus the 
women went out to meet him in the undress 
of bacchanals, troops of naked boys repre- 
senting cupids, and men clothed like 
satyrs danced before. Everywhere were 
ivy crowns, spears wreathed with green, 
and harps, flutes, pipes, and human voices 
sang songs of praise to the great god Bac- 
chus — for such Antony liked to be called. 

Antony knew that between Cleopatra 
and Caesar there had been a tender love. 
All the world that Caesar ruled, Antony 
now ruled — or thought he did. In the 
intoxication of success he would, too, rule 
the heart that the great Caesar had ruled. 
He would rule this proud heart or he would 
crush it beneath his heel. 

He despatched Dellius, his trusted secre- 
tary to Alexandria summoning the Queen 
to meet him at Cilicia, and give answer as 
to why she had given succour to the army 
of Cassius. 

The charge was preposterous, and if 
sincere, shows the drunken condition of 
Antony's mind. Cleopatra loved Caesar — 



Untortcas 

tfon of 

Success 



74 



Xtttle Sourness 



Cleopatra's 
Xove for 
Cesar 



he was to her the King of Kings, the one 
supreme and god-like man of earth. Her 
studious and splendid mind had matched 
his own — this cold, scholarly man of fifty- 
two had been her mate — the lover of her 
soul. Scarcely five short years before, 
she had attended him on his journey as 
he went away, and there on the banks 
of the Nile as they parted, her unborn 
babe responded to the stress of parting 
no less than she. 

Afterward she had followed him to Rome 
that he might see his son, Caesario. 

She was in Rome, when Brutus and 
Cassius struck their fatal blows, and had 
fled, disguised, her baby in her arms, 
refusing to trust the precious life to the 
hands of hirelings. 

And now that she should be accused of 
giving help to the murderer of her joy ! 
She had execrated and despised Cassius, 
and now she hated, no less, the man who 
had wrongfully accused her. 

But he was dictator — his summons 
must be obeyed. She would obey it, but 
she would humiliate him. 

Antony waited at Cilicia on the day 
appointed, but Cleopatra did not appear. 



flDarfe Hntonp 



75 



He waited two days — three — and very 
leisurely, up the river, the galleys of Cleo- 
patra came. 

But she did not come as suppliant. 

The curiously carved galley was studded 
with nails of gold ; the oars were all tipped 
with silver, the sails were of purple silk. The 
rowers kept time to the music of flutes. 
The Queen in a gauzy dress of Venus re- 
clined under a canopy, fanned by Cupids. 
Her maids were dressed like the Graces, 
and fragrance of burning incense filled the 
air along the shores. 

The whole city went down the river to 
meet this most gorgeous pageant, and 
Antony the proud was left at the tribunal 
alone. 

On her arrival Cleopatra sent official 
word of her presence. Antony sent 
back word that she should come to 
him. 

She responded that if he wished to 
see her he should call and pay his 
respects. 

He went down to the riverside and was 
astonished at the dazzling, twinkling lights 
and all the magnificence that his eyes 
beheld. Very soon he was convinced that 



H 

©otgeous 
pageant 



7 6 



SLittle Journeys 



Cleopatra's 

ffasctnas 

tion 



in elegance he cotdd not cope with this 
Egyptian queen. 

The personal beauty of Cleopatra was 
not great. Many of her maids outshone 
her. Her power lay in her wit and won- 
drous mind. She adapted herself to con- 
ditions; and on every theme and topic 
that the conversation might take, she 
was at home. 

Her voice was marvellously musical, and 
was so modulated that it seemed like an 
instrument of many strings. She spoke 
all languages, and therefore, had no use 
for interpreters. 

When she met Antony she quickly took 
the measure of the man. She fell at once 
into his coarse soldier ways, and answered 
him jest for jest. 

Antony was at first astonished, then 
subdued, next entranced — a woman who 
could be the comrade of a man she had 
never seen before! She had the intellect 
of a man and all the luscious weaknesses 
of a woman. 

Cleopatra had come hating this man 
Antony, and to her surprise she found him 
endurable — and more. Besides that, she 
had cause to be grateful to him — he had 



/IDarfe Hntonp 



77 



destroyed the conspirators who had killed 
her Caesar — her King of Kings. 

She ordered her retinue to make ready 
to return. The prows were turned toward 
Alexandria; and aboard the galley of the 
queen, beneath the silken canopy, at the 
feet of Cleopatra, reclined the great Mark 
Antony. 



Bt tbe 

jfeet of 

Cleopatra 



7» 



Bntony's 

love 



BYRON sums the subject up in his 
masterly phrase, "Man's love is of 
man's life a thing apart ; 'tis woman's whole 
existence." Still, I suppose it will not be 
disputed that much depends upon the 
man and — the woman. 

In this instance we have a strong, wilful, 
ambitious and masculine man; up to the 
time he met Cleopatra, love was of his 
life apart; after this, it was his whole 
existence. When they first met there at 
Cilicia, Antony was past forty, she was 
twenty-five. 

Plutarch tells us that Fulvia, the wife 
of Antony, an earnest and excellent woman, 
had tried to discipline him. The result 
was that instead of bringing him over to 
her way of thinking she had separated 
him from her. 

Cleopatra ruled the man by entwining 



/IDarft Hntort£ 



79 



her spirit with his — mixing the very fibres 
of their being — fastening her soul to his 
with hoops of steel. She became a ne- 
cessity to him — a part and parcel of the 
fabric of his life. Together they attended 
to all the affairs of state. They were one 
in all the games and sports. The exuber- 
ant animal spirits of Antony occasionally 
found vent in roaming the streets of Alex- 
andria at dead of night, rushing into houses 
and pulling people out of bed, and then 
absconding before they were well awake. 
In these nocturnal pranks, Cleopatra often 
attended him, dressed like a boy. Once 
they both got well pommelled, and de- 
servedly, but they stood the drubbing 
rather than reveal their identity. 

The story of their fishing together, and 
Antony making all the catch has been 
often told. He had a skilful diver go 
down every now and then and place a fish 
on his hook. Finally when he grew 
beautifully boastful, as successful fisher- 
men are apt to do, Cleopatra had her diver 
go down and attach a large Newfoundland 
salt cod-fish to his hook, which when pulled 
up before the company turned the laugh 
and in the guise of jest taught the man a 



©antes 

and 
Sports 



8o 



Xittle Journeps 



Unequal 
Ipartaeis 



useful lesson. Antony should have known 
better than to try and deceive a woman 
like that — other men have tried it before 
and since. 

But all this horse-play was not to the 
higher taste of Cleopatra — with Caesar, 
she would never have done it. 

It is the man who gives the key to con- 
duct in marriage, not the woman; the 
partnership is successful only as a woman 
conforms her life to his. If she can joy- 
fully mingle her life with his, destiny 
smiles in benediction and they become 
necessary to each other. If she grudgingly 
gives, conforming outwardly, with mental 
reservations, she droops, and spirit flagel- 
lates the body until it sickens, and dies. If 
she holds out firmly upon principle, intent 
on preserving her individuality, the man, 
if small, sickens and dies ; if great, he finds 
companionship elsewhere, and leaves her 
to develop her individuality alone — which 
she never does. One of three things 
happens to her : she dies, lapses into nullity, 
or finds a mate whose nature is sufficiently 
like her own for them to blend. 

Cleopatra was a greater woman, far, 
than Antony was a man. But she con- 



flDarft Hntony 



81 



formed her life to his and counted it joy. 
She was capable of better things, but she 
waived them all, as strong women do and 
have done since the world began. Love 
is woman's whole existence — sometimes. 
But love was not Cleopatra's whole ex- 
istence, any more than it was the sole 
existence of the silken Sara, her prototype. 
Cleopatra loved power first, afterward 
she loved love. By attaching to herself a 
man of power both ambitions were realized. 

Two years had gone by, and Antony 
still remained at Alexandria. Importun- 
ities, requests, and orders had all failed 
to move him to return. The days passed 
in the routine affairs of state, hunting, 
fishing, excursions, fetes, and games. An- 
tony and Cleopatra were not separated 
night or day. 

Suddenly news of serious import came 
— Fulvia, and Lucius, the brother of 
Antony, had rebelled against Caesar and 
had gathered an army to fight him. 

Antony was sore distressed, and started 
at once to the scene of the difficulty. 
Fulvia's side of the story was never told, 
for before Antony arrived in Italy she 
was dead. 



Distressing 
"Hews 



82 



%ittle Journeps 



Octavius Caesar came out to meet An- 
tony and they met as friends. According 
to Caesar, the whole thing had been planned 
by Fulvia as a scheme to lure her lord 
from the arms of Cleopatra. And anyway 
the plan had worked. The Triumvirate 
still existed — although Lepidus had prac- 
tically been reduced to the rank of a 
private citizen. 

Antony and Caesar would now rule the 
world as one, and to cement the bond 
Antony should take the sister of Octavius 
to wife. Knowing full well the rela- 
tionship of Antony and Cleopatra, she 
consented to the arrangement, and the 
marriage ceremony was duly performed. 

Antony was the head of the Roman 
army and to a great degree the actual 
ruler. Power was too equally divided 
between him and Caesar for either to be 
happy — they quarrelled like boys at play. 

Antony was restless, uneasy, impatient, 
— Octavia tried to keep the peace, but her 
kindly offices only made matters worse. 

War broke out between Rome and certain 
tribes in the East, and Antony took the 
field. Octavia importuned her liege that 
she might attend him, and he finally 



/IDarfe Briton^ 



&3 



consented. She went as far as Athens, 
then across to Macedonia and here Antony 
sent her home to her brother that she might 
escape the dangers of the desert. 

Antony followed the enemy down into 
Syria; and there sent for Cleopatra that 
he might consult with her about joining 
the forces of Egypt with those of Rome 
to crush the barbarians. 

Cleopatra came on, the consultation 
followed, and it was decided that when 
Caesar the Great — the god-like man whose 
memory they mutually revered — said, ' 'War 
is a foolish business, " he was right. They 
would let the barbarians slide — if they 
deserved punishment, the gods would look 
after the case. If the barbarians did 
not need punishment, then they should 
go free. 

Tents were struck, pack camels were 
loaded, horses were saddled, and the 
caravan started for Alexandria. By the 
side of the camel that carried the Queen, 
quietly stepped the proud barb that bore 
Mark Antony. 



B ffoolfsb 
Business 



8 4 



VI 



Gxsario 



FOR fourteen years Cleopatra and An- 
tony ruled Egypt together. The 
country had prospered, even in spite of 
the extravagance of its governors, and the 
Egyptians had shown a pride in their 
Roman ruler, as if he had done them great 
honour to remain and be one with them. 

Caesario was approaching manhood — 
his mother's heart was centring her 
ambition in him — she called him her King 
of Kings, the name she had given to his 
father. Antony was fond of the young 
man, and put him forward at public fetes 
even in advance of Cleopatra, his daughter, 
and Alexander and Ptolemy, his twin 
boys by the same mother. In playful 
paraphrase of Cleopatra, Antony called 
her the Queen of Kings, and also the 
Mother of Kings. 

Word reached Rome that these children 



/toarft Untony 



85 



of Cleopatra were being trained as if 
they were to rule the world — perhaps it 
was so to be! Octavius Caesar scowled. 
For Antony to wed his sister, and then 
desert her, and bring up a brood of bar- 
barians to menace the State, was a serious 
offence. 

An order was sent commanding Antony 
to return — requests and prayers all having 
proved futile and fruitless. 

Antony had turned into fifty; his hair 
and beard were whitening with the frost 
of years. Cleopatra was near forty — de- 
voted to her children, being their nurse, 
instructor, teacher. 

The books refer to the life of Antony and 
Cleopatra as being given over to sensuality, 
licentiousness, profligacy. Just a word 
here to state this fact: sensuality alone 
sickens and turns to satiety ere a single 
moon has run her course. Sensuality 
was a factor in the bond, because sensu- 
ality is a part of life, but sensuality alone 
soon separates a man and woman — it does 
not long unite. The bond that united 
Antony and Cleopatra cannot be dis- 
posed of by either of the words, "sensual- 
ity" or "licentiousness" — some other 



"Cbe JBotrt 
of Tflnlon 



86 



Xfttie Sourness 



Bntons'6 



term here applies: make it what you 
wish. 

A copy of Antony's will had been stolen 
from the Alexandria archives and carried 
to Rome by traitors in hope of personal 
reward. Caesar read the will to the Senate. 
One clause of it was particularly offensive 
to Caesar: it provided that on the death 
of Antony, wherever it might occur, his 
body should be carried to Cleopatra. The 
will also provided that the children of 
Cleopatra should be provided for first, and 
afterward the children of Fulvia and 
Octavia. 

The Roman Senate heard the will, and 
declared Mark Antony an outlaw — a public 
enemy. 

Ere long Caesar himself took the field 
and the Roman legions were pressing down 
upon Egypt. The renegade Mark An- 
tony was fighting for his life. For a time 
he was successful, but youth was no longer 
his, the spring had gone out of his veins, 
and pride and prosperity had pushed him 
toward fatty degeneration. 

His soldiers lost faith in him, and turned 
to the powerful name of Caesar — a name 
to conjure with. A battle had been ar- 



/IDarfe Hntons 



%7 



ranged between the fleet of Mark Antony 
and that of Caesar. Mark Antony stood 
upon a hillside, overlooking the sea, and 
saw his valiant fleet approach, in battle 
array, the ships of the enemy. The two 
fleets met, hailed each other in friendly 
manner with their oars, turned and to- 
gether sailed away. 

On shore the cavalry had done the same 
as the soldiers on the sea — the infantry 
were routed. 

Mark Antony was undone — he made 
his way back to the city, and as usual 
sought Cleopatra. The palace was de- 
serted, save for a few servants. They said 
that the Queen had sent the children away 
some days before, and she was in the 
mausoleum. 

To the unhappy man this meant that 
she was dead. He demanded that his one 
faithful valet, known by the fanciful name 
of Eros, should keep his promise and kill 
him. Eros drew his sword, and Antony 
bared his breast, but instead of striking 
the sword into the vitals of his master, 
Eros plunged the blade into his own body, 
and fell dead at his master's feet. 

At which Mark Antony exclaimed, " This 



mnbone 



Xtttie Sourness 



•Ketfres 
ment of 

Cleopatra 



was well done, Eros — thy heart would not 
permit thee to kill thy master, but thou 
hast set him an example I " So saying he 
plunged his sword into his bowels. 

The wound was not deep enough to cause 
immediate death; he begged the gathered 
attendants to kill him. 

Word had been carried to Cleopatra, 
who had moved into her mausoleum for 
safety. This monument and tomb had 
been erected some years before; it was 
made of square blocks of solid stone, and 
was the stoutest building in Alexandria. 
While Antony was outside the walls fight- 
ing, Cleopatra had carried into this building 
all of her jewelry, plate, costly silks, gold, 
silver, pearls, her private records, and 
most valuable books. She had also car- 
ried into the mausoleum a large quantity 
of flax and several torches. 

The intent was that if Antony was de- 
feated, and the city taken by Caesar, the 
conqueror should not take the Queen alive, 
neither should he have her treasure. With 
her two women, Iras and Charmion, she 
entered the tomb, all agreeing that when 
the worst came they would fire the flax 
and die together. 



flDarfe Bitterns 



8 9 



When the Queen heard that Antony was 
at death's door, she ordered that he should 
be brought to her. He was carried on a 
litter to the iron gate of the tomb; but 
she, fearing treachery, would not unbar 
the door. Cords were let down from a 
window above and the queen and her two 
women, by much effort, drew the stricken 
man up, and lifted him through the 
window. 

Cleopatra embraced him, calling him 
her lord, her life, her king, her husband. 
She tried to staunch his wound, but the 
death rattle was already in his throat. 
"Do not grieve," he said, "remember our 
love — remember, too, I fought like a Ro- 
man and have been overcome only by a 
Roman!" 

And so holding him in her arms, Antony 
died. 

When Caesar heard that his enemy was 
dead, he put on mourning for the man who 
had been his comrade and colleague, and 
sent messages of condolence to Cleopatra. 
He set apart a day for the funeral, and 
ordered that the day should be sacred, and 
that Cleopatra should not be disturbed in 
any way. 



2>eatb of 
Bnton? 



9° 



Xittie Journeys 



Cleopatra 
{prepares 
for 2>eatb 



Cleopatra prepared the body for burial 
with her own hands, dug the grave alone, 
and with her women laid the body to rest, 
and she alone gave the funeral address. 

Caesar was gentle, gracious, kind. As- 
surances came that he would do neither 
the city, nor the Queen, the slightest 
harm. 

Cleopatra demanded Egypt for her 
children, and for herself she wished only 
the privilege of living with her grief in 
obscurity. Caesar would make no promises 
for her children, but as for herself she should 
still be Queen — they were of one age — 
why should not Caesar and Cleopatra still 
rule, just as a Caesar had ruled before! 

But this woman had loved the Great 
Caesar, and now her heart was in the grave 
with Mark Antony — she scorned the soft, 
insinuating promises. 

She clothed herself in her most costly 
robes, wearing the pearls and gems that 
Antony had given her, and upon her head 
was the diadem that proclaimed her 
Queen. A courier from Caesar's camp 
knocked at the door of the mausoleum, 
but he knocked in vain. 

Finally a ladder was procured, and he 



/IDarft Hntonp 



91 



climbed to the window through which the 
body of Antony had been lifted. 

In the lower room he saw the Queen 
seated in her golden chair of state, robed 
and serene, dead. At her feet lay Iras, 
lifeless. The faithful Charmion stood as 
if in waiting at the back of her mistress's 
chair, giving a final touch to the diadem 
that sat upon the coils of her lustrous hair. 

The messenger from Caesar stood in the 
door aghast — orders had been given that 
Cleopatra should not be harmed, neither 
should she be allowed to harm herself. 

Now she had escaped ! 

"Charmion!" called the man in stern 
rebuke. "How was this done?" 

"Done, sir," said Charmion "as became 
a daughter of the King of Egypt." 

As the woman spoke the words she 
reeled, caught at the chair, fell, and was 
dead. 

Some said these women had taken a 
deadly poison invented by Cleopatra and 
held against this day; others still told of 
how a countryman had brought a basket 
of figs, by appointment, covered over with 
green leaves, and in the basket was hidden 
an asp, that deadliest of serpents. Cleo- 



Deatb of 
tbe Queen 



9 2 



Xittle Journeys 



f n tbe 

©rave witb 
Bnton^ 



patra had placed the asp in her bosom, 
and the other women had followed her 
example. 

Caesar still wearing mourning for Mark 
Antony went into retirement and for three 
days refused all visitors. But first he 
ordered that the body of Cleopatra, clothed 
as she had died, in her royal robes, should 
be placed in the grave beside the body of 
Mark Antony. 

And it was so done. 



SAVONAROLA 



93 



95 



Some have narrowed their minds, and so fettered 
them with the chains of antiquity, that not only- 
do they refuse to speak save as the ancients spake, 
but they refuse to think save as the ancients 
thought. God speaks to us, too, and the best 
thoughts are those now being vouchsafed to us. 
We will excel the ancients! 



igfcet tbc 
Hncients 



Savonarola. 



97 



THE wise ones say with a sigh, genius 
does not reproduce itself. But let 
us take heart and remember that medi- 
ocrity does not always do so, either. The 
men of genius have often been the sons of 
commonplace parents — no hovel is safe 
from it. 

The father of Girolamo Savonarola was 
a trifler, a spendthrift, and a profligate. 
Yet he proved a potent teacher for his son, 
pressing his lessons home by the law of 
antithesis. The sons of dissipated fathers 
are often temperance fanatics. 

The character of Savonarola's mother 
can be best gauged by the letters written 
to her by her son. Many of these have 
come down to us, and they breathe a love 
that is very gentle, very tender, and yet 
very profound. That this woman had 
an intellect which went to the heart of 



parents 



9 8 



Xittle Journeys 



JBeet 
Ueacber 



things is shown in these letters: we write 
for those who understand, and the person 
to whom a letter is written gives the 
key that calls forth its quality. Great 
love-letters are written only to great 
women. 

But the best teacher young Girolamo 
had was his grandfather, Dr. Michael 
Savonarola, a physician of Padua, and 
a man of much wisdom, and common-sense, 
beside. Between the old man and his 
grandchild there was a very tender senti- 
ment, that soon formed itself into an 
abiding bond. Together they rambled 
along the banks of the Po, climbed the 
hills in springtime looking for the first 
flowers, made collections of butterflies, 
and caught the sunlight in their hearts 
as it streamed across the valleys when the 
shadows lengthened. On these solitary 
little journeys they usually carried a copy 
of St. Thomas Aquinas, and seated on a 
rock the old man would read to the boy 
lying on the grass at his feet. 

In a year or two, the boy did the reading, 
and would expound the words of the saint 
as he went along. 

The old grandfather was all bound up 



Savonarola 99 



in this slim, delicate youngster with the voices 
olive complexion, and sober ways. There 
were brothers and sisters at home — big 
and strong — but this boy was different. 
He was not handsome enough to be much 
of a favourite with girls, or strong enough 
to win the boys, and so he and the grand- 
father were chums together. 

This thought of aloofness, of being pe- 
culiar, was first fostered in the lad's mind 
by the old man. It was not exactly a 
healthy condition. The old man taught 
the boy to play the flute, and together they 
constructed a set of pipes — the pipes o' 
Pan — and out along the river they would 
play, when they grew tired of reading, and 
listen for the echo that came across the 
water. 

"There are voices calling to me," said 
the boy looking up at the old man, one 
day, as they rested by the bank. 

"Yes, I believe it — you must listen for 
the Voice, " said the old man. 

And so the idea became rooted in the 
lad's mind that he was in touch with 
another world, and was a being set apart. 

" Lord, teach me the way my soul should 
walk!" was his prayer. Doubt and dis- 



IOO 



Xtttle Sourness 



B f>app£ 
Urio 



trust filled his mind, and his nights were 
filled with fear. This child without sin, 
believed himself to be a sinner. 

But this feeling was all forgotten when 
another companion came to join them in 
their walks. This was a girl about the 
same age as Girolamo. She was the child 
of a neighbour — one of the Strozzi family. 
The Strozzi belonged to the nobility, and 
the Savonarolas were only peasants, yet 
with children there is no caste. So this 
trio of boy, girl, and grandfather were 
very happy. The old man taught his 
pupils to observe the birds and bees, to 
make tracings of the flowers, and listen 
to the notes he played on the pipes, so 
as to call them all by name. And then 
there was always the St. Thomas Aquinas 
to fall back upon should outward nature 
fail. 

But there came a day when the boy and 
girl ceased to walk hand in hand, and in- 
stead of the delight and abandon of child- 
hood there was hesitation and aloofness. 

When the parents of the girl forbade her 
playing with the boy, reminding her of the 
difference in their station, and she came 
by stealth to bid the old man and Girolamo 



Savonarola 



IOI 



good-bye, the pride in the boy's heart 
flamed up : he clenched his fist — and feeling 
spent itself in tears. 

When he looked up, the girl was gone — 
they were never to meet again. 

The grief of the boy pierced the heart 
of the old man and he murmured, "Joy 
liveth yet for a day, but the sorrow of man 
abideth forever." 

Doubt and fear assailed the lad. 

The efforts of his grandfather to interest 
him in the study of his own profession of 
medicine, failed. Religious brooding filled 
his days, and he became pale and weak 
from fasting. 

He had grown in stature, but the gaunt- 
ness of his face made his coarse features 
stand out, so that he was almost repulsive. 
But this homeliness was relieved by the 
big, lustrous, brown eyes — eyes that chal- 
lenged and beseeched in turn. 

The youth was now a young man — 
eighteen summers lay behind, when he 
disappeared from home. 

Soon came a letter from Bologna in which 
Girolamo explained at length to his mother 
that the world's wickedness was to him 
intolerable, its ambition ashes, and its 



ffrom 
l?outb to 
flDanbooo 



102 



Xtttle 3ourne£S 



HBUtbs 

bcawal 

from tbe 

TKHorlo 



hopes not worth striving for. He had 
entered the monastery of St. Dominico, 
and to save his family the pain of parting 
he had stolen quietly away. "I have 
hearkened to the Voice," he said. 



io3 



II 

SAVONAROLA remained in the mon- "Ceacber 
astery at Bologna for six years, t^ater 
scarcely passing beyond its walls. These 
were years of ceaseless study, writing, 
meditation — work. He sought the most 
menial occupations — doing tasks that 
others cautiously evaded. His simplicity, 
earnestness, and austerity won the love 
and admiration of the monks, and they 
sought to make life more congenial to 
him, by advancing him to the office of 
teacher to the novitiates. 

He declared his unfitness to teach, and 
it was an imperative order, and not a sug- 
gestion, that forced him to forsake the 
business of scrubbing corridors on hands 
and knees and array himself in the white 
robe of a teacher and reader. 

The office of teacher and that of an 
orator are not far apart — it is all a matter 



°4 



Xittie Journeys 



[power of 
an ©rator 



of expression. The first requisite in ex- 
pression is animation — you must feel in 
order to impart feeling. No drowsy, lazy, 
disinterested, half-hearted, selfish, pre- 
occupied, trifling person can teach — to 
teach you must have life, and life in 
abundance. You must have abandon — 
you must project yourself, and inundate 
the room with your presence. To infuse 
life, and a desire to remember, to know, to 
become, into a class of a dozen pupils is 
to reveal the power of an orator. If you 
can fire the minds of a few with your own 
spirit, you can, probably, also fuse and 
weld a thousand in the same way. 

Savonarola taught his little class of 
novitiates, and soon the older monks 
dropped in to hear the discourse. A 
larger room was necessary, and in a short 
time the semi-weekly informal talk re- 
solved itself into a lecture, and every seat 
was occupied when it was known that 
Brother Girolamo would speak. 

This success suggested to the Prior that 
Savonarola be sent out to preach in the 
churches round about, and it was so done. 

But outside the monastery Savonarola 
was not a success — he was precise, exact, 



Savonarola 



and laboured to make himself understood 
— freedom had not yet come to him. 

But let us wait! 

One of America's greatest preachers was 
well past forty before he evolved abandon, 
swung himself out clear, and put for open 
sea. Uncertainty and anxiety are death 
to oratory. 

In every monastery there are two classes 
of men, the religious, the sincere, the 
earnest, the austere; and the fat, lazy, 
profligate, and licentious. 

And the proportion of the first class to 
the second changes just in proportion as 
the monastery is successful- — to succeed 
in nature is to die. The fruit much loved 
by the sun rots first. The early monas- 
teries were mendicant institutions, and for 
mendicancy to grow rich is an anomaly 
that carries a penalty. A successful beg- 
gar is apt to be haughty, arrogant, dicta- 
torial — from an humble request for alms 
to a demand for your purse, is but a step. 
In either case the man wants something 
that is not his — there are three ways to 
get it : earn it, beg it, seize it. The first 
method is absurd — to dig I am ashamed 
— the second, easy, the last is best of all, 



ic5 



Classes of 
flionfts 



io6 



Xittle 3ourneps 



Corruption 

intbc 
Cburcb 



providing objection is not too strenuous. 
Beggars a-horseback are knights of the 
road. 

That which comes easy, goes easy, and 
so it is the most natural thing in the world 
for a monk to become a connoisseur of 
wines, an expert gourmet, a sensualist 
who plays the limit. The monastic im- 
pulse begins in the beautiful desire for 
solitude — to be alone with God — and ere it 
runs its gamut, dips deep into licence and 
wallows in folly. 

The austere monk leaves woman out, 
the other kind enslaves her: both are 
wrong, for man can never advance and 
leave woman behind. God never intended 
that man, made in his image, should be 
either a beast or a fool. 

And here we are wiser than Savonarola 
— noble, honest, and splendid man that he 
was. He saw the wickedness of the world 
and sought to shun it by fleeing to a monas- 
tery. There he saw the wickedness of 
the monastery and there being no place 
to flee to, he sought to purify it. And at 
the same time he sought to purify and 
better the world by standing outside of 
the world. 



Savonarola 



107 



The history of the Church is a history 
of endeavour to keep it from drifting into 
the thing it professes not to be — concrete 
selfishness. The Church began in hu- 
mility and simplicity, and when it became 
successful behold, it became a thing of 
pomp, pride, processional, crowns, jewels, 
rich robes, and a power that used itself 
to subjugate and subdue, instead of the 
pity that would uplift and lead by 
love. 

Oh, the shame of it! 

And Savonarola saw these things — saw 
them to the exclusion of everything else 
— and his cry continually was for a return 
to the religion of Jesus the carpenter, the 
man who gave his life that others might 
live. 

The Christ spirit filled the heart of 
Savonarola. His soul was wrung with 
pity for the poor, the unfortunate, the 
oppressed: and he had insight into econo- 
mics sufficient to know that where greed, 
gluttony, and idleness abound, there too 
stalks oppression, suffering, and death. 
The palaces of the rich are built on the 
bones of the poor. 

Others, high in Church authority, saw 



Corruption 
intbe 
Cburcb 



io8 



Xittie Journeys 



St. flDarfc'g 
ADonasterB 



these things, too, and knew no less than 
Savonarola the need of reform — they gloried 
in his ringing words of warning, and they 
admired no less his example of austerity. 

They could not do the needed work, 
perhaps he could do a little, at least. 

And so he was transferred to St. Mark's 
Monastery at Florence — the place that 
needed him most. 

Florence was the acknowledged seat of 
art and polite learning of all Italy, and 
St. Mark's was the chief glory of the Church 
in Florence. 

Florence was prosperous and so was 
St. Mark's, and have we not said that 
there is something in pure prosperity that 
taints the soul? 

Savonarola was sent to St. Mark's merely 
as a teacher and lecturer. Bologna was 
full of gloom and grime — the bestiality 
there was untamed. Here everything was 
gilded, gracious and good to look upon. 
The cloister walks were embowered in 
climbing roses, the walls decorated fresh 
from the brush of Fra Angelico, and the 
fountains in the gardens, adorned by 
naked cupids, sent their sparkling beads 
aloft to greet the sunlight. 



Savonarola 



109 



Brother Girolamo had never seen such 
beauty before — its gracious essence en- 
folded hirn round, and for a few short 
hours lifted that dead weight of abiding 
melancholy from his soul. 

When he lectured he was surprised to 
find many fashionable ladies in his audi- 
ence—learning was evidently a fad. He 
saw that it was expected that he should 
be amusing, diverting, and incidentally, 
instructive. He had only one mode of 
preaching — this was earnest exhortation 
to a higher life, the life of. austerity, sim- 
plicity, and nearness to God, by labouring 
to benefit His children. 

He mumbled through his lecture and 
retired, abashed and humiliated. 



flDooe of 
Ipreacbfng 



Ill 



lorenjo 

tbe 
i»agni= 
ficent 



IT was the year 1482, and the whole 
world was a-thrill with thought and 
feeling. Lorenzo the Magnificent was at 
the height of his power and popularity; 
printing-presses gave letters an impetus; 
art flourished ; the people were dazzled by 
display and were dipping deep into the 
love of pleasure. The austerity of Christ- 
ian religion had glided off by impercept- 
ible degrees into pagan pageantry, and 
the song of bacchanals filled the streets at 
midnight. 

Lorenzo did for the world a great and 
splendid work — for one thing, he dis- 
covered Michael Angelo — and the en- 
couragement he gave to the arts made 
Florence the beautiful dream in stone that 
she is even to this day. 

The world needs the Lorenzos and the 
world needs the Savonarolas — they form 



Savonarola 



in 



an opposition of forces that holds the 
balance true. Power left to itself attains 
a terrific impetus — a governor is needed 
— and it was Savonarola who tempered 
and tamed the excesses of the Medici. 

In 1483, Savonarola was appointed Lent- 
en preacher at the Church of St. Lorenzo 
in Florence. His exhortations were plain, 
homely, blunt — his voice uncertain, and 
his ugly features at times inclined his 
fashionable auditors to unseemly smiles. 
When ugliness forgets itself and gives off 
the flash of the spirit it becomes magnifi- 
cent — takes upon itself a halo — but this 
was not yet to be. 

The orator must subdue his audience 
or it will subdue him. 

Savonarola retired to his cloister cell, 
whipped and discouraged. He took no 
part in the festivals and fetes: the Gar- 
dens of Lorenzo were not for him; the 
society of the smooth and cultured lovers 
of art and literature was beyond his pale. 
Being incapable by temperament of mixing 
in the whirl of pleasure, he found a satis- 
faction in keeping out of it, thus proving 
his humanity. Not being able to have 
a thing, we scorn it. Men who cannot 



Xcnten 
Ipreacber 

in 
Florence 



Xittle Journeys 



Savons 
arola's 
Mission 



dance are apt to regard dancing as sinful. 

Savonarola saw things as a countryman 
sees them when he goes to a great city 
for the first time. There is much that is 
wrong — very much that is wasteful, ex- 
travagant, absurd, and pernicious, but it 
is not all base, and the visitor is apt to err 
in his conclusions, especially if he be of an 
intense and ascetic type. 

Savonarola was sick at heart, sick in 
body — fasts and vigils had done their 
sure and certain work for nerves and 
digestion. He saw visions and heard 
voices, and in the Book of Revelation he 
discovered the symbols of prophecy that 
foretold the doom of Florence. He felt 
that he was divinely inspired. 

In the outside world, he saw only the 
worst — and this was well. 

He believed that he was one sent from 
God to cleanse the Church of its iniquities 
— and he was right. 

These mad men are needed — Nature 
demands them, and so God makes them 
to order. They are ignorant of what the 
many know, and this is their advantage; 
they are blind to all but a few things, and 
therein lies their power. 



Savonarola 



113 



The belief in his mission filled the 
heart of Savonarola. Gradually he gained 
ground, made head, and the Prior of St. 
Mark's did what the Prior of St. Domi- 
nico's had done at Bologna — he sent the 
man out on preaching tours among the 
churches and monasteries. The austerity 
and purity of his character, the sublimity 
of his faith, and his relentless war upon 
the extravagance of the times, made his 
presence valuable to the Church. Then 
in all personal relationships the man was 
most lovable — gentle, sympathetic, kind. 
Wherever he went, his influence was for 
the best. 

Power plus came to him for the first 
time at Brescia in i486. The sermon he 
gave was one he had given many times, 
in fact, he never had but one theme — 
flee from the wrath to come, and accept the 
pardon of the gentle Christ ere it is too 
late — ere it is too late. 

Much of what passes for oratory is 
merely talk, lecture, harangue, and argu- 
ment. These things may all be very 
useful, and surely they have their place 
in the world of work and business, but 
oratory is another thing. Oratory is the 



influence 

and 

powet 



ii4 



Xtttle 5ourneps 



<3reat 

•Kecurring 

Ubeme 



impassioned outpouring of a heart — a 
heart full to bursting: it is the absolute 
giving of soul to soul. 

Every great speech is an evolution — it 
must be given many times before it becomes 
a part of the man himself. Oratory is 
the ability to weld a mass of people into 
absolutely one mood. To do this the 
orator must lose himself in his subject — 
he must cast expediency to the winds. 
And more than this, his theme must al- 
ways be an appeal for humanity. In- 
vective, threat, challenge, all play their 
parts, but love is the great recurring 
theme that winds in and out through 
every great sermon or oration. Pathos 
is only possible where there is great love, 
and pathos is always present in the oration 
that subdues, that convinces, that wins, 
and sends men to their knees in abandon- 
ment of their own wills. The audience is 
the female element — the orator the male, 
and love is the theme. The orator comes 
in the name of God to give protection — 
freedom. 

Usually the great orator is on the losing 
side. And this excites on the part of the 
audience the feminine attribute of pity, 



Savonarola 



115 



and pity fused with admiration gives us 
love — thus does love act and react on 
love. 

Oratory supplies the most sublime grati- 
fication which the gods have to give. To 
subdue the audience and blend mind with 
mind affords an intoxication beyond the 
ambrosia of elysium. When Sophocles 
pictured the god Mercury seizing upon the 
fairest daughter of earth and carrying her 
away through the realms of space, he had 
in mind the power of the orator, which 
through love lifts up humanity and sways 
men by a burst of feeling that brooks no 
resistance. 

Oratory is the child of democracy — it 
pleads for the weak, for the many against 
the few, and no great speech was ever yet 
made save in behalf of mankind. The 
orator feels their joys, their sorrows, their 
hopes, their desires, their aspirations, 
their sufferings and pains. They may 
have wandered far, but his arms are open 
wide for their return. Here alone does 
soul respond to soul. And it is love, alone, 
that fuses feeling so that all are of one 
mind and mood. Oratory is an exercise 
of power. 



Uplifts 

Ibumaiitts 



n6 



Xittie Sourness 



penalty 

of 
Oratory 



But oratory, like all sublime pleasures, 
pays its penalty — this way madness lies. 
The great orator has ever been a man of 
sorrows, acquainted with grief. Oratory 
points the martyr's path; it leads by the 
thorn road; and those who have trod the 
way, have carried the cross with bleeding 
feet, and deep into their side has been 
thrust the spear. 



IV 



ii7 



IT was not until his fortieth year that 
Savonarola attained that self-suf- 
ficiency and complete self-reliance that 
marks a man who is fit for martyrdom. 
Courage comes only to those who have 
done the thing before. 

By this time Savonarola had achieved 
enemies, and several dignitaries had done 
him the honour of publicly answering him. 
His invective was against the sins of Church 
and Society, but his enemies instead of 
defending their cause did the very natural 
thing ^of inveighing against Savonarola. 

Thus did they divert attention from the 
question at issue. Personal abuse is often 
more effective than argument, and certainly 
much more easy to wield. 

Savonarola was getting himself beauti- 
fully misunderstood. Such words as fa- 
natic, pretender, agitator, heretic, renegade, 



stoofr 



n8 



Xittle Sourneps 



ibumanfat 
/Movement 



and "dangerous," were freely hurled at 
him. They said he was pulling down the 
pillars of society. He seriously considered 
retiring entirely from the pulpit; and as 
a personal vindication and that his 
thoughts might live, he wrote a book, 
The Triumph of the Cross. This volume 
contains all his philosophy and depicts 
truth as he saw it. 

Let a reader, ignorant of the author, 
peruse this book to-day, and he will find 
in it only the oft-repeated appeal of a 
believer in ' ' Primitive Christianity. ' ' Pur- 
ity of life, sincerity, simplicity, earnestness, 
loyalty to God and love to man — these 
are very old themes, yet they can never 
die. Zeal can always fan them into flame. 

Savonarola was an unconscious part of 
the great "humanist" movement. 

Savonarola, John Knox, the Wesleys, 
Calvin, Luther, the Puritans, Huguenots, 
Quakers, Shakers, Mennonites, and Dunk- 
ards — all are one. The scientist sees 
species under all the manifold manifes- 
tations of climate, environment, and local 
condition. 

Florence was a republic, but it is only 
eternal vigilence that can keep a republic 



Savonarola 



119 



a republic. The strong man who assumes 
the reins is continually coming to the fore, 
and the people diplomatically handled are 
quite willing to make him king, provided 
he continues to call himself " Citizen." 

Lorenzo de Medici ruled Florence, yet 
occupied no office, and assumed no title. 
He dictated the policy of the government, 
filled all the offices, and ministered the 
finances. Incidentally he was a punctil- 
ious Churchman — obeying the formula — 
and the Church of Florence was within 
his grasp no less than the police. The 
secret of this power lay in the fact that he 
handled the "sinews of war" — no man 
ever yet succeeded largely in a public way 
who was not a financier, or else one who 
owned a man who was. Public power is 
a matter of money, wisely used. 

To'divert, amuse, and please the people 
is a necessity to the ruler, for power at the 
last is derived from the people, and no 
government endures that is not founded 
on the consent of the governed. If you 
would rule either a woman or a nation, 
you would better gain consent. To secure 
this consent you must say, " Please." 

The gladiatorial shows of Greece, the 



iPower of 

Xoren30 &e 

flDeoicl 



120 Xtttie 3ourneps 

^ b6 games, contests, displays, all the barbaric 
'arise* splendour of processions, music, fetes, fes- 
tivals, chants, robes, and fantastic fol-de- 
rol of Rome — ancient and modern — the 
boom of guns in sham battles, coronations, 
thrones, and crowns are all manifestations 
of this great game of power. 

The people are children, and must be 
pleased. 

But eventually the people reach ado- 
lescence — knowledge comes to them — to 
a few at least — and they perceive that they 
themselves foot all bills, and pay in sweat 
and tears and blood for all this pomp of 
power. 

They rise in their might, like a giant 
aroused from sleep, and the threads that 
bound them are burst asunder. They 
themselves assume the reins of govern- 
ment, and we have a republic. 

And this republic endures until some 
republican, coming in the name of the 
people, waxes powerful and evolves into 
a plutocrat who assumes the reins, and 
the cycle goes its round and winds itself 
up on the reel of time. 

Savonarola thundered against the ex- 
travagance, moral riot, and pomp of the 



Savonarola 



rich — and this meant the Medici, and all 
those who fed at the public trough, and 
prided themselves on their patriotism. 

Lorenzo grew uneasy, and sent requests 
that the preacher moderate his tone in 
the interests of public weal. Savonarola 
sent back words that were unbecoming 
in one addressing a ruler. 

Then it was that Lorenzo the Magnifi- 
cent, also the wise and wily, resolved on a 
great diplomatic move. 

He had the fanatical and troublesome 
monk, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, made 
Prior of the Monastery of St. Mark's — 
success was the weapon that would undo 
him. 

Of course, Lorenzo did not act directly 
in the matter — personally he did not appear 
at all. 

Now the Prior of St. Mark's had the 
handling of large sums of money, the place 
could really be the home of a prince if 
the Prior wished to be one ; and all he had 
to do was to follow the wishes of the 
Magnificent Lorenzo. 

"Promote him," said Lorenzo, "and 
his zeal will dilute itself, and culture will 
come to take the place of frenzy. Art is 



H 

2)ipIomatfc 
flDove 



Xfttle Sourness 



prior of 
St. flDarfc's 



better than austerity, and silken robes 
and broidered chasubles are preferable to 
horse-hair and rope. A crown looks better 
than a tonsure. ' ' 

And Savonarola became Prior of St. 
Mark's. 

Now the first duty, according to estab- 
lished custom, of a newly appointed Prior 
was to call, in official robes, and pay his 
respects to Lorenzo, the nominal governor 
of Florence. It was just a mere form, you 
know — simply showing the people that 
St. Mark's was still loyal to the State. 

Lorenzo appointed a day and sent word 
that at a certain hour he would be pleased 
to welcome the Prior, and congratulate 
him upon his elevation. At the same time 
the Prior was expected to say mass in the 
private chapel of the governor, and bestow 
his blessing upon the House of the Medici. 

But Savonarola treated the invitation 
to call with disdain, and turned the messen- 
gers of Lorenzo away with scant courtesy. 
Instead of joining hands with Lorenzo he 
preached a sermon at the Cathedral, bit- 
terly arraigning the aristocracy, prophesy- 
ing their speedy downfall, and beseeching 
all men who wished to be saved to turn, 



Savonarola 



123 



repent, make restitution, and secure the 
pardon of God, ere it was too late. The 
sermon shook the city, and other addresses 
of the same tenor followed daily. It was 
a "revival," of the good old Methodist 
kind — and religious emotion drifting into 
frenzy is older far than history. 

The name of Lorenzo was not mentioned 
personally, but all saw it was a duel to 
death between the plain people and the 
silken and perfumed rulers. It was the 
same old fight — personified by Savonarola 
on one side and Lorenzo on the other. 

Lorenzo sunk his pride and went to 
St. Mark's for an interview with the Prior. 
He found a man of adamant and iron, one 
blind and deaf to political logic, one who 
scorned all persuasion and in whose lexicon 
there was no such word as expediency. 

Lorenzo turned away whipped and 
disappointed — the prophecies of impending 
doom had even touched his own stout 
heart. He was stricken with fever, and 
the extent of his fear is shown, that in 
his extremity he sent for the Prior of St. 
Mark's to come to his bedside. 

Even there, Savonarola was not softened. 
Before granting absolution to the sick man, 



Zbc people 
an& tbe 
tRulers 



124 



Xittle Sourness 



JDeatb of 
Xoren30 M 



he demanded three things. "First, you 
must repent and feel a true faith in God, 
who in his mercy alone can pardon." 

Lorenzo assented. 

" Second, you must give up your ill- 
gotten wealth to the people." 

Lorenzo groaned, and finally reluctantly 
agreed. 

"Third, you must restore to Florence 
her liberty." 

Lorenzo groaned and moaned, and 
turned his face to the wall. 

Savonarola grimly waited half an hour, 
but no sign coming from the stricken man, 
he silently went his way. 

The next day Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
aged forty-two, died — died unabsolved. 



V 



*25 



LORENZO left three sons. The eldest 
was Pietro, just approaching his ma- 
jority, who was the recognised successor 
of his father. The second son was Giuliano 
who had already been made a cardinal at 
thirteen years of age, and who was destined 
to be the powerful Pope, Leo X. 

The death of Lorenzo had been indi- 
rectly foretold by Savonarola, and now 
some of his disciples were not slow in 
showing an ill-becoming exultation. They 
said, "I told you so!" The intensity of 
the revival increased, and there was danger 
of its taking on the form of revolution. 

Savonarola saw this mob spirit at work, 
and for a time moderated his tone. But 
there were now occasional outbreaks be- 
tween his followers and those of the 
Medici. A guard was necessary to protect 
Savonarola as he passed from St. Mark's 



WUI& 
Excitement 



26 



Xittle Journeps 



Summoned 
to IRome 



to the different churches where he preached. 
The police and soldiers were on the side 
of the aristocracy who supported them. 

The Pope had been importuned to use 
his influence to avert the threatened harm 
to "true religion." Savonarola should be 
silenced, said the aristocrats, and that 
speedily. 

A letter came from Pope Alexander, 
couched in most gentle and gracious words 
requesting Savonarola to come to Rome 
and there give exhibition of his wondrous 
gifts. 

Savonarola knew that he was dealing 
with a Borgia — a man who cajoled, bought, 
and bribed, and when these failed there 
were noose, knife, and poison close at hand. 
The Prior of St. Mark's could deal with 
Lorenzo in Florence, but with Alexander 
at Rome he would be undone. The in- 
iquities of the Borgia family far exceeded 
the sins of the Medici, and in his impas- 
sioned moments Savonarola had said as 
much. 

At Rome he would have to explain 
these things — and to explain them, would 
be to repeat them. Alexander stood for 
nepotism, which is the sugared essence 



Savonarola 



127 



of that time-honoured maxim, "To the 
victor belong the spoils. " The world has 
never seen so little religion and so much 
pretence as during the reign of the 
Borgias. 

At this time when offenders were called 
to Rome, it sometimes happened that 
they were never again heard from. Be- 
neath the Castle of St. Angelo were dun- 
geons—no records were kept — and the 
stories told of human bones found in 
walled-up cells are no idle tales. An iron 
collar circling the neck of a skeleton that 
was once a man is a sight these eyes have 
seen. 

Prison records open to the public, are 
a comparatively new thing, and the prac- 
tice of "doctoring" a record has, until 
recently, been quite in vogue. 

Savonarola acknowledged the receipt 
of the Pope's request, but made excuses 
and asked for time. 

Alexander certainly did all he could to 
avoid an open rupture with the Prior of 
St. Mark's. He was inwardly pleased 
when Savonarola affronted the Medici — 
it was a thing he dared not do — and if the 
religious revival could be localised and 



Ercuses 



Xtttle Journeys 



Zbz 1Re^ 
Ibat 



kept within bounds, all would have been 
well. It had now gone far enough; if 
continued, and Rome should behold such 
scenes as Florence had witnessed, the 
Holy See itself would not be safe. 

Alexander accepted the excuses of Sa- 
vonarola with much courtesy. Soon word 
came that the Prior of St. Mark's was to be 
made a cardinal, but the gentle hint went 
with the message, that the red hat was to 
be in the nature of a reward for bringing 
about peace at Florence. 

Peace! Peace! how could there be 
peace unless Savonarola bowed his head 
to the rule of the aristocrats? 

His sermons were often interrupted — 
stones were thrown through the windows 
when he preached. The pulpit where he 
was to speak had been filled with filth, 
and the skin of an ass tacked over the 
sacred desk. Must he go back? 

To the offer of the cardinal's hat he 
sent this message: " No hat will I have but 
that of a martyr reddened with my own 
blood." 

The tactics of the Pope now changed, 
he sent an imperative order that Savona- 
rola should present himself at Rome, and 



Savonarola 



129 



give answer to the charges there made 
against him. 

Savonarola silently scorned the message. 

The Pope was still patient. He would 
waive the insult to himself, if Florence 
would only manage to take care of her 
own troubles. But importunities kept 
coming that Savonarola should be silenced 
— the power of the man had grown until 
Florence was absolutely under his sub- 
jection. Bonfires of pictures, books, and 
statuary condemned by him, had been 
burned in the streets; and the idea was 
carried to Rome that there was danger of 
the palaces being pillaged. Florence could 
deal with the man, but would not so long 
as he was legally a part of the Church. 

Then it was that the Pope issued his 
bull of excommunication, and the order 
removing Savonarola from his office as 
Prior of St. Mark's. 

The answer of Savonarola was a sermon 
in the form of a defiance. He claimed, 
and rightly, that he was no heretic — no 
obligations that the Church asked had he 
ever disregarded, and therefore the Pope 
had no right to silence him. 

He made his appeal to the rulers of the 



Ejconts 
munfcatefc 



i3° 



Xittle Journeys 



Florence 
ano tbe 

pope 



world, and declared that Alexander was no 
Pope, because he had deliberately bought 
his way to the Vatican. 

There was now a brief struggle between 
the authorities of the Pope and those of 
Florence as to who should have the man. 
The Pope wanted him to be secretly cap- 
tured and taken to Rome for trial. Alex- 
ander feared the publicity that Florence 
would give to the matter — he knew a 
shorter way. 

But Florence stood firm. Savonarola 
had now retired to St. Mark's and his 
followers barricaded the position. The 
man might have escaped, and the author- 
ities hoped he would, but there he re- 
mained holding the place, and daily 
preaching to the faithful few who stood 
by him. 

Finally the walls were stormed, and 
police, soldiers, and populace overran the 
monastery. Savonarola remained passive, 
and he even reproved several of the 
monks who, armed with clubs, made stout 
resistance. 

The warrants for arrest called only for 
Fra Girolamo, Fra Domenico, and Fra 
Silvestro — these last being his most faith- 



Savonarola 



ful disciples, preaching often in his pulpit 
and echoing his words. 

The prisoners were bound and hurried 
through the streets toward the Piazzo 
Signoria. The soldiers made a guard 
of spears and shields around them, but 
this did not prevent their being pelted 
with mud and stones. 

They were lodged in separate cells, in 
the prison portion of the Palazzo Vecchio, 
and each was importuned to recant the 
charges made against the Pope and the 
Medici. All refused, even when told that 
the others had recanted. 

Savonarola's judges were chosen from 
among his most bitter foes. He was 
brought before them, and ordered to take 
back his accusations. 

He remained silent. 

Threatened, he answered in parable. 

He was then taken to the torture cell, 
stripped of all clothing, and a thin, strong 
rope passed under his arms. He was 
suddenly drawn up, and dropped. 

This was repeated until the cord around 
the man's body cut the skin and his form 
was covered with blood. 



Imprisoned 

ano 

Uortureo 



132 



Xittle Journeys 



(Bceat Calm 



The physically sensitive nature of the 
man gave way and he recanted. 

Being taken to his cell he repeated all he 
had said against the Pope, and called 
aloud, "Lord Jesus, pardon me that I 
forsook thy truth — it was the torture — I 
now repeat all I ever said from thy pulpit 
— Lord Jesus, pardon !" 

Again he was taken to the torture 
chamber and all was gone over as before. 

He and his two companions were now 
formally condemned to death and their 
day of execution set. 

To know the worst is peace — it is un- 
certainty that kills. 

A great calm came over Savonarola — 
he saw the gates of heaven opening for 
him. He was able now to sleep and eat. 
The great brown eyes beamed with love and 
benediction, and his hands were raised 
only in blessing to friend and foe alike. 

The day of execution came, and the 
Piazza Signoria was filled with a vast 
concourse of people. Every spare foot 
of space was taken. Platforms had 
been erected and seats sold for fabulous 
prices. Every window was filled with 
faces. 



Savonarola 



133 



An elevated walk had been built out 
from the second story of the prison to the 
executioner's platform. From this high 
scaffold rose a great cross with ropes and 
chains dangling from the arms. Below 
were piled high heaps of fagots, saturated 
with oil. 

There was a wild exultant yell from the 
enemies of the men on their appearance, 
but others of the adversary appeared 
dazed at their success, and it seemed for a 
few moments as if pity would take the 
place of hate, and the mob would demand 
the release of the men. 

The prisoners walked firmly and con- 
versed in undertone, encouraging each 
other to stand firm. Each held a crucifix 
and pressed it to his lips, repeating the 
creed. Half way across to the gibbet, 
they were stopped, the crucifixes torn 
from their hands, and their priestly robes 
stripped from them. There they stood, 
clad only in scant underclothes, in sight 
of the mob that seethed and mocked. 
Sharp sticks were thrust up between the 
crevices of the board walk, so blood 
streamed from their bare feet. 

Having advanced so that they stood 



©n tbe 
TIGlag to 

Execution 



134 



Xittie Sourness 



Hn tbe 

tflamee 



beneath the gibbet, their priestly robes 
were again thrown over them, and once 
more torn off by a bishop who repeated 
the words, " Thus do I sever you from the 
Church Militant and the Church Trium- 
phant !" 

"Not the Church Triumphant!" an- 
swered Savonarola in a loud voice, "You 
cannot do that." 

In order to prolong the torture of Sa- 
vonarola his companions were hanged first, 
before his eyes. 

When his turn came he stepped lightly 
to his place between the dead and swinging 
bodies of his brethren. As the execu- 
tioner was adjusting the cord about his 
neck, his great tender eyes were raised 
to heaven and his lips moved in prayer as 
the noose tightened. 

The chains were quickly fastened about 
the bodies to hold them in place, and 
scarcely had the executioner upon the plat- 
form slid down the ladders, than the wait- 
ing torches below fired the pile and the 
flames shot heavenward and licked the 
great cross where the three bodies swayed. 

The smoke soon covered them from 
view. 



Savonarola 



135 



Then suddenly there came a gust of 
wind that parted the smoke and flames, 
and the staring mob, now silent, saw that 
the fire had burned the thongs that bound 
the arms of Savonarola. One hand was 
uplifted in blessing and benediction. So 
died Savonarola. 



Ube 

"mpltftefc 

Tbanfc 



MARTIN LUTHER 



137 



139 



Only slaves die of overwork. Work a weariness, 
a danger, forsooth! Those who say so can know 
very little about it. Labour is neither cruel nor 
ungrateful; it restores the strength we give it a 
hundred-fold and, unlike your financial operations, 
the revenue is what brings in the capital. Put soul 
into your work and joy and health will be yours ! 

Luther. 



TKHovf? 



I4i 



THE idea of the monastery is as old 
as man, and its rise is as natural as 
the birth and death of the seasons. 

We need society, and we need solitude. 

But it happens again and again that 
man gets a surfeit of society — he is thrown 
with those who misunderstand him, who 
thwart him, who contradict his nature, 
who bring out the worst in his disposition : 
he is sapped of his strength, and then he 
longs for solitude. He would go alone up 
into the mountain. What is called the 
"monastic impulse" comes over him — he 
longs to be alone — alone with God. 

The monastic impulse can be traced 
back a thousand years before Christ: the 
idea is neither Christian, Jewish, Philistine, 
nor Buddhist. Every people of which we 
know have had their hermits and recluses. 

The communal thought is a form of 
monasticism — it is a-getting away from 



Ube 
Monastic 
flmpulse 



142 



Xfttle 3ourness 



Ube 
Cbriatian 
monastery 



the world. Monasticism does not neces- 
sarily imply celibacy, but as unrequited 
or misplaced love is usually the precursor 
of the monastic impulse, celibacy or some 
strange idea on the sex problem usually 
is in evidence. 

Monasticism has many forms: College 
Settlements, Zionism, Deaconess Homes, 
Faith Cottages, Shakerism, Mormonism 
are all manifestations of the impulse to get 
away from the world, and still benefit the 
world by standing outside of it. This 
desire to get away from the world and still 
mix in it, shows that monasticism is not 
quite sincere — we want society no less 
than we want solitude. Very seldom, 
indeed, has a monk ever gone away and 
remained : he comes back to the world, oc- 
casionally, to beg, or sell things, and to 
"do good." 

The rise of the Christian monastery 
begins with Paul the Hermit, who in the 
year 250, withdrew to an oasis in the 
desert, and lived in a cave before which 
was a single palm-tree, and a spring. 

Other men worn with strife, tired of 
stupid misunderstanding, persecution, and 
unkind fate, came to him. And there they 



I 4 2 



TS 



Zbt 
Cbrtotli 



irsor 



Martin Luther 
From the painting by L. Cranach 



rid, oc- 
and to 

Ti the Christian monas; 

ins with Paul the Hen- 







■ 

- - 



rtDarttn Xutber 



J 43 



lived in common. The necessity of dis- 
cipline and order naturally suggested 
themselves, so they made rules that 
governed conduct. The day was divided 
up into periods when the inmates of this 
first monastery prayed, communed with 
the silence, worked, and studied. 

Within a hundred years there were 
similar religious communities at fifty or 
more places in Upper Egypt. . 

Women have always imitated men, and 
soon nunneries sprang up here and there. 
In fact, the nunnery has a little more excuse 
for being than the monastery. In a 
barbaric society an unattached woman 
needs protection, and this she got in the 
nunnery. Even so radical a thinker as 
Max Muller regarded the nunnery as a val- 
uable agent in giving dignity to woman's 
estate. If she was mistreated and desired 
protection, she could find refuge in this 
sanctuary. She became the bride of Christ, 
and through the protection of the convent, 
man was forced to be civil and chivalry 
came to take the place of force. 

Most monasteries have been mendicant 
institutions. As early as the year 500, 
we read of the monks going abroad a- 



Zbe 
'nunneries 



144 



Xtttle Sourness 



Expert 
MeQQavs 



questing, a bag on their backs. They begged 
as a business, and some became very 
expert at it, just as we have expert evan- 
gelists and expert debt-raisers. They took 
anything that anybody had to give. They 
begged in the name of the poor; and as 
they travelled they undertook to serve 
those who were poorer than themselves. 
They were distributing agents. 

They ceased to do manual labour and 
scorned those who did. They traversed 
the towns and highways by trios and asked 
alms at houses or of travellers. Occasion- 
ally they carried cudgels, and if such a 
pair asked for alms it was usually equal 
to a demand. These monks made ac- 
quaintances, they had their friends among 
men and women, and often being far from 
home they were lodged and fed by the 
householders. In some instances the alms 
given took the form of a tax which the 
sturdy monks collected with startling 
regularity. We hear of their dividing the 
country up into districts, and each man 
having a route that he jealously guarded. 

They came in the name of the Lord — 
they were supposed to have authority. 
They said, "He who giveth to the poor 



flDartin Xutber 



145 



lendeth to the Lord. " They blessed those 
who gave; and cursed those who refused. 
Some of them presumed to forgive the 
sins of those who paid. And soon the 
idea suggested itself of forgiving in ad- 
vance, or granting an indulgence. They 
made promises of mansions in the skies 
to those who conformed and threatened 
with the pains of hell those who declined 
their requests. So the monks occasionally 
became rich. 

And when they grew rich they often 
became arrogant, dictatorial, selfish, glut- 
tonous, and licentious. They undertook 
to manage the government which they 
had before in their poverty renounced. 
They hired servants to wait upon them. 
The lust of power and the lust of the flesh, 
and the pride of the heart, all became 
manifest. 

However, there were always a few men, 
pure of heart and earnest of purpose, who 
sought to stem the evil tendencies. And 
so the history of monasticism and the 
history of the Church is the record of a 
struggle against idleness and corruption. 
To shave a man's head, give him a new 
name, and clothe him in strange garments, 



£vfl 
TEen&encies 



4 6 



SLittle Journeys 



3BeneMct 
an& 

Caesios 
botus 



does not change his nature. Monks grown 
rich and powerful will become idle, and 
the vows of poverty, chastity , and obedience 
are then mere jokes and jests. 

No man knew this better than Benedict 
who lived in the sixth century. The 
profligacy, ignorance, and selfishness of 
the fat and idle monks appalled him. 
With the aid of Cassiodorus he set to work 
to reform the monasteries by interesting 
the inmates in beautiful work. Cassio- 
dorus taught men to write, illumine, and 
bind books. Through Italy, France, and 
Germany he travelled and preached the 
necessity of manual labour, and the ex- 
cellence of working for beauty. The art 
impulse in the nunneries and monasteries 
began with Benedict and Cassiodorus, 
who worked hand in hand for beauty, 
purity, and truth. Benedict had the greater 
executive ability, but Cassiodorus had 
the more far-reaching and subtle in- 
tellect. He anticipated all that we have 
to say to-day on the New Education — 
the necessity of playing off one faculty of 
the mind against another through manual 
labour, play, and art creation. He even 
anticipated the primal idea of the kinder- 



/IDartin Xutber 



147 



garten, for he said, "The pleasurable 
emotion that follows the making of beau- 
tiful forms with one's hands is not a sin, 
like unto the pleasure that is gained for 
the sake of pleasure; — rather to do good 
and beautiful work is incense to the nostrils 
of God." 

In all Benedictine monasteries, flagel- 
lations ceased, discipline was relaxed, and 
the inmates were enjoined to use their 
energies in their work, and find peace by 
imitating God, and like Him, creating 
beautiful things. 

Beautiful book-making traces its genesis 
directly to Benedict and Cassiodorus. 

But a hundred years after the death of 
these great men, the necessity of reform 
was as great as ever, and other men took 
up the herculean task. 

And so it has happened that every 
century men have arisen who protested 
against the abuses inside the Church. The 
Church has tried to keep religion pure, 
but when she has failed and scandalised 
society at large, governments have taken 
the matter up, and the monasteries were 
wiped out of existence and their property 
confiscated. Since the fifteenth century, 



meet of 
"fteform 



148 



SLittie Journeys 



^Beginning 

of 
protests 
antism 



regularly once every hundred years, France 
has driven the monks from her borders, 
and in this year of our Lord 1903, she is 
doing what Napoleon did a hundred years 
ago; what Cromwell did in England in 
1645 J what has been done time and again 
in every corner of Christendom. 

Martin Luther's quarrel with the Church 
began simply as a protest against certain 
practices of the monks, and that his pro- 
tests should develop into a something 
called "Protestantism" was a thing he 
never for a moment anticipated, or desired. 
He had no thought of building an insti- 
tution on negation; and that he should 
be driven from the Church because he 
loved the Church and was trying to purify 
and benefit it, was a source to him of 
deepest grief. 



II 



149 



MARTIN LUTHER was thirty-five 
years old. He was short in stature, 
inclining to be stout, strenuous, and bold. 
His faults and his virtues were all on the 
surface. He neither deceived nor desired 
to deceive — the distinguishing feature of 
his character was frankness. He was an 
Augustinian monk, serving as a teacher 
in the University of Wittenberg. 

Up to this time, his life had been un- 
eventful. His parents had been very 
poor people — his father a day-labourer, 
working in the copper mines. In his boy- 
hood Martin was ''stubborn and intract- 
able," which means that he had life plus. 
His teachers had tried to repress him by 
flogging him " fifteen times in a forenoon, " 
as he himself has told us. 

In childhood he used to beg upon the 
streets, and so he could the better beg he 



Xutber'0 
Gbfftboob 



i5° 



SLittle Sourness 



U Strong 
IRattue 



was taught to sing. This rough early 
experience wore off all timidity and put 
"stage-fright" forever behind. He could 
not remember a time when he could not sing 
a song or make a speech. 

That he developed all the alertness and 
readiness of tongue and fist of the street 
urchin there is no doubt. 

When he was taken into a monastery 
at eighteen years of age, the fact that he 
was a good singer and a most successful 
beggar, were points of excellence that 
were not overlooked. 

That the young man was stubbornly 
honest in his religious faith, there is not 
a particle of doubt. The strength of his 
nature and the extent of his passion made 
his life in the monastery most miserable. 
He had not yet reached the point that 
many of the older monks had, and learned 
how to overcome temptation by suc- 
cumbing to it, so he fasted for days until 
he became too weak to walk, watched the 
night away in vigils, and whipped his poor 
body with straps until the blood flowed. 

We now think it is man's duty to eat 
proper food, to sleep at night, and to care 
for his body ; so as to bring it to the most 



/IDarttn SLutber 



151 



perfect condition possible — all this that he 
may use his life to its highest and best. 
Life is a privilege and not a crime. 

But Martin Luther never knew of these 
things and there were none to teach him, 
and probably he would have rejected 
them stoutly if they had been presented 
— arguing the question six nights and days 
together. 

The result of all that absurd flying in 
the face of nature was indigestion and its 
concomitant, nervous irritability. These 
demons fastened upon him for life ; and we 
have his word for it in a thousand places 
that he regarded them as veritable devils — 
thus does man create his devil in his own 
image. Luther had visions — he " saw 
things," and devils, witches, and spirits 
were common callers to the day of his 
death. 

In those early monastery days, he used 
to have fits of depression when he was 
sure that he had committed the "un- 
pardonable sin," and over and over in his 
mind he would recount his shortcomings. 
He went to confession so often that he 
wore out the patience of at least one con- 
fessor, who once said to him, "Brother 



Untbe 
Slougb of 

E)espon& 



152 



Xittle Journeys 



Skill in 
Debating 



Martin, you are not so much a sinner as a 
fool. " Still another gave him this good 
advice, "God is not angry with you, but 
He will be if you keep on, for you are 
surely angry with Him — you better think 
less about yourself and more of others; 
go to work!" 

This excellent counsel was followed. 
Luther began to study the Scriptures, 
and the writings of the saints. He took 
part in the disputes which were one .of the 
principal diversions of all monasteries. 

Now a monk had the privilege of re- 
maining densely ignorant, or he could 
become learned. Life in a monastery was 
not so very different from what it was 
outside — a monk gravitated to where he 
belonged. The young man showed such 
skill as a debater, and such commendable 
industry at all of his tasks, from scrubbing 
the floor to expounding Scripture, that he 
was sent to the neighbouring University 
of Erfurt. From there he was transferred 
to the University of Wittenberg. In the 
classes at these universities the plan ob- 
tained, which is still continued in all 
theological schools, of requiring a student 
to defend his position on his feet. Knotty 



/JDartln Xutber 153 

propositions are put forth, and logical a&vancea 
complications fired at the youth as a 
necessary part of his mental drill. Beside 
this there were societies where all sorts of 
abstrusities and absurdities were argued 
to a stand-still. 

At this wordy warfare none proved more 
adept than Martin Luther. He became 
Senior Wrangler; secured his degree; re- 
mained at the college as a post-graduate 
and sub-lecturer; finally was appointed 
a teacher, then a professor, and when 
twenty-nine years old became a Doctor 
of Theology. 

He took his turn as preacher in the 
Schlosskirche, which was the school chapel, 
and when he preached, the place was 
crowded. He was something more than 
a monotonous mumbler of words, he made 
his addresses personal, direct, critical. 
His allusions were local, and contained a 
deal of wholesome criticism put with pith 
and point, well seasoned with a goodly 
dash of rough and surprising wit. 

Soon he was made district vicar — a sort 
of presiding elder — and preached in a 
dozen towns over a circuit of a hundred 
miles. On these tours he usually walked, 



154 



QLittie Sourness 



tfcacfe of 
Courtesy 



bareheaded, wearing the monk's robe. 
Often he was attended by younger monks 
and students who considered it a great 
privilege to accompany him. His courage, 
his blunt wit, his active ways, all appealed 
to the youth, and often delegations would 
go out to meet him. Every college has 
his kind, whom the bantlings fall down 
and worship — fisticuffs and books are both 
represented and a touch of irreverence 
for those in authority is no disadvantage. 

Luther's lack of reverence for his su- 
periors held him back from promotion — 
and another thing was his imperious tem- 
per. He could not bear contradiction. 
The orator's habit of exaggeration was 
upon him, and occasionally he would 
affront his best friends in a way that tested 
their patience to the breaking point. 
"You might become an abbot, and even 
a bishop, were it not for your lack of 
courtesy, " wrote his superior to him on 
one occasion. 

But this very lack of diplomacy, this 
indifference to the opinions of others, this 
boldness of speech made him the pride 
and pet of the students. Whenever he 
entered the lecture-room they cheered 



/iDartin Xutber 



155 



him, and often they applauded him even 
in church. 

Luther was a "sensational preacher," 
and he was an honest preacher. No 
doubt but that the applause of his 
auditors urged him on to occasional un- 
seemliness. He acted upon his audiences, 
and the audience reacted upon him. He 
thundered against the profligacy of the 
rich, the selfishness of society, the in- 
iquities of the government, the excesses 
of the monks, the laxity of discipline in 
the schools, and the growing tendency in 
the Church to worship the golden calf. 
In some instances priests and monks had 
married, and he thundered against these. 

All of the topics he touched had been 
treated by Savonarola in Italy, Wyclif 
in England, Brenz at Heidelberg, Huss 
in Bohemia, Erasmus in Holland, and 
Butzer in Switzerland — and they had all 
paid the penalty of death or exile. 

It is well to be bold but not too bold. 
Up to a certain point the Church and so- 
ciety will stand criticism — first it is di- 
verting, next amusing, then tiresome, 
finally heretical — that is t<D say, criminal. 

There had been a good deal of heresy — 



ttonest 
preacber 



156 



Xfttle Journeys 



HinetEsfive 

Zbeecs 



it was in the air — men were thinking for 
themselves — the printing-presses were at 
work, and the spirit of the Renaissance 
was abroad. 

Martin Luther was not an innovator — he 
simply expressed what the many wished 
to hear — he was caught in the current 
of the time; he was part and parcel of the 
Renaissance. 

And he was a loyal Churchman. None 
of his diatribes were against the Church 
itself — he wished to benefit the Church 
by freeing it from the faults that he feared 
would disintegrate it. 

And so it happened that on the 31st 
day of October, 15 17, Martin Luther 
tacked on the church door at Wittenberg 
his Ninety-five Theses. 

The church door was the bulletin board 
for the University. The University con- 
sisted of about five hundred students. 
Wittenberg was a village of three or four 
thousand people, all told. The theses 
were simply questions for discussion, and 
the proposition was that Martin Luther 
and his pupils would defend these ques- 
tions against all comers in public debate. 

Challenges of this sort were very 



jflDartin Xutber 



157 



common, public debates were of weekly 
occurrence; and little did Martin Luther 
realise that this paltry half sheet of paper 
was to shake the world. 



B. Xtttle 
5teaven 



158 



3obn 
Uet3el 



III 



THE immediate cause of Luther's chal- 
lenge was the presence of a Domini- 
can monk by the name of John Tetzel. 
This man was raising money to complete 
St. Peter's Church at Rome, and he was 
armed with a commission direct from 
Pope Leo X. 

That Brother John was an expert in his 
line, no one has ever denied. He had 
been in this business of raising money for 
about ten years, and had built monasteries, 
asylums, churches, and convents. Be- 
ginning as a plain, sturdy beggar, this 
enterprising monk had developed a system 
— not entirely new, but he had added 
valuable improvements. 

There is a whole literature on the sub- 
ject of the " indulgence, " and I surely have 
no thought of adding to the mighty tomes 
on this theme. But just let me briefly 



/JDarttn SLutber 159 

explain how John worked: When he ap- zewe 
proached a town, he sent his agents ahead 
and secured the co-operation of some 
certain priest, under the auspices of whose 
church the place was to be worked. This 
priest would gather a big delegation of 
men, women, and children, and they would 
go out in a body to meet the represen- 
tative of God's vicegerent on earth. The 
Pope could not come himself, and so he 
sent John Tetzel. 

Tetzel was carried on a throne borne 
on the shoulders of twenty-five men. His 
dress outshone any robe ever worn by 
mortal Pope. Upon his head was a crown, 
and in his hand a hollow golden sceptre 
that enclosed his commission from the 
Pope. In advance of this throne was 
carried an immense cross, painted red. 
As the procession entered a village, people 
would kneel or uncover as the agent of the 
Pope passed by; all traffic would cease — 
stores and places of business would be 
closed. In the public square or market 
place a stage would be erected, and from 
this pulpit Tetzel would preach. 

The man had a commanding presence, 
and a certain rough and telling eloquence. 



i6o 



Xittle Journeps 



Sacrament 

of 

penance 



He was the foremost evangelist of his day. 
He had a chorus of chanters who wore 
bright robes and sang and played harps. 
It will thus be seen that Moody and Sankey 
methods are no new thing. Crowds flocked 
to hear him, and people came for many 
miles. 

Tetzel reasoned of righteousness and 
judgment to come; he told of the horrors 
of sin, its awful penalties; he pictured 
purgatory, hell, and damnation. 

Men cried aloud for mercy, women 
screamed, and the flaming cross was held 
aloft. 

Men must repent — and they must pay. 
If God has blessed you, you should show 
your gratitude. The sacrament of pen- 
ance consists of three parts: repentance, 
confession, satisfaction. The intent of 
penance is educational, disciplinary, and 
medicinal. If you have done wrong, you 
can make restitution to God, whom you 
have angered, by paying a certain sum to 
his agent, for a good purpose. 

The Church has never given men the 
privilege of wronging other men by making 
a payment. That is one of the calumnies 
set afloat by infidels who pretend that 



/Ifcartin Xutber 



161 



Catholics worship images. You can, how- 
ever, show penitence, sincerity, and grati- 
tude by giving. Any one can see that 
this is quite a different thing from buying 
an indulgence. 

This gift you made was similar to 
the Wehrgeld, or money compensation made 
to the injured or kinsmen of those who 
had been slain. 

By giving you wiped out the offence, 
and better still you became participant 
in all the prayers of those to whom you 
gave. If you helped rebuild St. Peter's, 
you participated in all the masses said 
there for the repose of the dead. This 
would apply to all your kinsmen now in 
purgatory. If you gave, you could get 
them out, and also insure yourself against 
the danger of getting in. Repent and 
show your gratitude. 

Tetzel had half a dozen secretaries in 
purple robes, who made out receipts. 
These receipts were printed in red and 
gold and had a big seal and ribbon attached. 
The size of the receipt and seal was pro- 
portioned according to the amount paid 
— if you had a son or daughter in purga- 
tory, it was wise to pay a large amount. 



©fvfng 



l62 



Xtttle 5ourne^s 



ences 



The certificates were in Latin and certified 
in diffuse and mystical language many 
things, and they gave great joy to the 
owners. 

The money flowed in on the secretaries 
in heaps. Women often took their jewelry 
and turned it over with their purses to 
Tetzel ; and the secretaries worked far into 
the night issuing receipts — or what some 
called letters of indulgence. 

That many who secured these receipts 
regarded them as a licence to do wrong 
and still escape punishment, there is no 
doubt. Before Tetzel left a town his 
secretaries issued for a sum equal tq 
twenty-five cents, a little certificate called 
a Butterbriefe, that allowed the owner to 
eat butter on his bread on fast days. 

Then in the night Tetzel and his caval- 
cade would silently steal away, to con- 
tinue their good work in the next town. 
This program was gone through in hund- 
reds of places, and the amount of money 
gathered no one knew, and what became 
of it all, no one could guess. Pope, 
Electors, Bishops, Priests, and Tetzel all 
shared in the benefits. 

To a great degree the same plans are still 



/IDartin SLutber 



163 



carried on. In Protestant churches we 
have the professional debt raiser, and the 
evangelist who recruits by hypnotic Tetzel 
methods. 

In the Catholic Church receipts are still 
given for money paid, vouching that the 
holder shall participate in masses and 
prayers, his name put in a window, or 
engrossed on a parchment to be placed 
beneath a corner-stone. Trinkets are sold 
to be worn upon the person as a protection 
against this and that. 

The Church does not teach that the Pope 
can forgive sin, or that by mere giving 
you can escape punishment for sin. Christ 
alone forgives. 

However, the Pope does decide on what 
constitutes sin and what not; and this 
being true, for myself, I do not see why 
he cannot decide that under certain con- 
ditions and with certain men an act is not 
a sin, which with other men is. And surely 
if he decides it is not a sin, the act thereby 
carries no penalty. Thus does the Pope 
have the power to remit punishment. 
Either the Pope is supreme, or he is not. 

Luther thought he was. The most 
that Luther objected to was Tetzel' s 



power 
of tbe pope 



164 



Xtttle Journeys 



Tflnjust 
3u&gment 



extreme way of putting the thing. Tetzel 
was a Dominican; Luther was an Augus- 
tinian: and between these two orders was 
continual friction. Tetzel was working 
Luther's territory, and Luther told what 
he thought of him, and issued a challenge 
to debate him on ninety-five propositions. 
That priests in their zeal should overstep 
their authority, and that people should 
read into the preaching much more than 
the preacher intended, is not to the dis- 
credit of the Church. The Church cannot 
be blamed for either the mistakes of 
Moses, or for the mistakes of her members. 
We have recently had the spectacle of a 
noted evangelist, in Vermont, preaching 
prohibition, indulging in strong drink, 
and making a bet with a Jebusite that 
he would turn all of his clothing wrong 
side out — socks, drawers, trousers, under- 
shirt, shirt, vest and coat — and preach 
with his eyes shut. The feat was carried 
out, and the preacher won the bet; but it 
would hardly be fair to charge this action 
up against either the Prohibition party 
or the Protestant religion. 



IV 



i65 



REVOLUTION never depended on any 
one man. A strong man is acted 
upon by the thought of others — he is a 
sensitive plate upon which impressions are 
made — and his vivid personality gathers up 
these many convictions, concentrates them 
into one focus, and then expresses them. 
The great man is the one who first ex- 
presses what the many believe. He is a 
voice for the voiceless, and gives in trum- 
pet tones what others would if they could. 

Throughout Germany there was a strong 
liberal movement. To blindly obey was 
not sufficient. To go to church, perform 
certain set acts at certain times, and pay 
were not enough — these things were all 
secondary — repentance must come first. 

And along comes John Tetzel with his 
pagan processions, supplying salvation for 
silver! Martin Luther the strenuous, the 



H IPofce for 
tbe 

Voiceless 



i66 



Xittle 3ourneps 



Xutber's 

Ipropoets 

tions 



impulsive, the bold, quickly writes a 
challenge in wrath to public disputation. 
"If God wills," said Martin to a friend, 
" I '11 surely kick a hole in his drum. " 

Within two weeks after the Ninety-five 
Theses were nailed to the church door, 
copies had been carried all over Germany, 
and in a month the theses had gone to 
every corner of Christendom. The local 
printing-press at Wittenberg had made 
copies for the students, and some of these 
prints were carried the next day to Leipsic 
and Mainz, and were at once recognised 
by publishers as good copy. Luther had 
said the things that thousands had wanted 
to say. Tame enough are the propositions 
to us now. Let us give a few of them : 



The whole life of the faithful disciple should 
be an act of repentance. 

Punishment remains as long as the sinner 
hates himself. 

The Pope neither can nor will remit punish- 
ment for sin. 

God must forgive first, and the Pope 
through his priests can then corroborate the 
remission. 

No one is sure of his own forgiveness. 

Every sinner who truly repents has a 



flDartin Xutber 



167 



plenary remission of punishment due him 
without payment of money to any one. 

Every Christian, living or dead, has a full 
share in all the wealth of the Church, without 
letters of pardon, or receipts for money paid, 

Christians should be taught that the buying 
of pardons is in no wise to be compared to 
works of mercy. 

To give to a poor man is better than to pay 
money to a rich priest. 

Because of charity and the works of charity, 
man becomes better, whether he pays money 
to build a church or not. 

Pardon for sin is from Christ, and is free. 

The Pope needs prayers for himself more 
than ready money. 

Christians should be taught that the Pope 
does not know of the exactions of his agents 
who rob the poor by threat, otherwise he 
would prefer that St. Peter's should lie in 
ashes than be built up on the skin, bones, 
and flesh of his sheep. 

If the Pope can release souls from purga- 
tory, why does he not empty the place for 
love and charity? 

The Pope being the richest man in Christ- 
endom, why does he not build St. Peter's out 
of his own pocket. 

Such, are the propositions that leaped 
hot from Luther's heart ; but they are not 



Xutbec's 

iproposfs 

ttona 



i68 



Xtttle Journeps 



Sflect of 
tbe Ubeses 



all of one spirit, for as he wrote he be- 
thought himself that Tetzel was a Domin- 
ican, and the Dominicans held the key 
to the Inquisition. Luther remembered 
the fate of Huss, and his inward eye caught 
the glare of fagots a-fire. So he changes 
his tone, and to show that he is still a 
Catholic he says, "God forgives no man 
his sin until the man first presents himself 
to his priestly vicar." 

Were it not for such expressions as this 
last, one might assume that man had no 
need of the assistance of priests or sacra- 
ments, but might go to God direct and 
secure pardon. But this would do away 
with even Martin Luther's business, so 
Brother Martin affirms, "The Church is 
necessary to man's salvation, and the 
Church must have a Pope in whom is 
vested supreme authority. 

"The Church is not to blame for the 
acts of its selfish, ignorant, and sinful 
professors." 

One immediate effect of the theses was 
that they put a quietus on the work of 
Brother John Tetzel. Instead of the 
people all falling prostrate on his ap- 
proach, many greeted him with jeers and 



flDarttn Xutber 



169 



mud-balls. He was only a few miles away 
from Wittenberg, but news reached him of 
what the students had in store, and im- 
mediately he quit business and went south. 

But although he did not appear in 
person, Tetzel prepared a counter set of 
theses, to the appalling number of one 
hundred and thirteen, and had them 
printed and widely distributed. His agent 
came to Wittenberg and peddled the 
documents on the streets. The students 
got word of what was going on and in a 
body captured the luckless Tetz elite, led 
him to the public square and burned his 
documents with much pomp and circum- 
stance. They then cut off the man's 
coat-tails, conducted him to the outskirts 
of the town, turned him loose and cheered 
him lustily as he ran. 

It will thus be seen that the human 
heart is ever the same, and among college 
students there is small choice. 

The following Sunday, Luther devoted 
his whole sermon to a vigorous condem- 
nation of the act of his students, admonish- 
ing them in stern rebuke. The sermon 
was considered the biggest joke of the 
season. 



TTet3erg 

Sbeses 



170 



Xfttle Sourness 



B lull in 
tbe Storm 



Tetzel seemed to sink out of sight. 
Those whom he had sought to serve re- 
pudiated him, and Bishops, Electors, and 
Pope declined to defend his cause. 

As for Luther, certain bishops made 
formal charges against him, sending a copy 
of his theses to Pope Leo X. The Holy 
Father refused to interfere in what he 
considered a mere quarrel between Domin- 
icans and Augustinians, and so the matter 
rested. 

But it did not rest long. 



V 



i7i 



THE general policy of the Church in 
Luther's time was not unlike what it 
is now. Had he gone to Rome, he would 
not have been humiliated — the intent 
would have been to pacify him. He might 
have been transferred to a new territory, 
with promise of a preferment, even to a 
bishopric, if he did well. 

To silence men, excommunicate them, 
degrade them, has never been done ex- 
cepting when it was deemed that the safety 
of the Church demanded it. 

The Church, like governments — all gov- 
ernments — is founded upon the consent 
of the governed. So every religion, and 
every government, changes with the peo- 
ple — rulers study closely the will of the 
people and endeavour to conform to their 
desire. Priests and preachers give people 



jpoHqg of 
tbedburcb 



I 7 2 



Xittle Journeys 



Xutber 

Iftemains 

jfirm 



the religion they wish for — it is a question 
of supply and demand. 

The Church has constantly changed as 
the intelligence of the people has changed. 
And this change is always easy and natural. 
Dogmas and creeds may remain the same, 
but progress consists in giving a spiritual 
or poetic interpretation to that which once 
was taken literally. The scheme of the 
esoteric and the exoteric is a sliding, self- 
lubricating, self-adjusting, non -copyrighted 
invention — perfect in its workings — that 
all wise theologians fall back upon in time 
of stress. 

Had Luther obeyed the mandate and 
gone to Rome, that would have been the 
last of Luther. 

Private interpretation is all right, of 
course: the Church has always taught it 
— the mistake is to teach it to everybody. 
Those who should know do know. Spir- 
itual adolescence comes in due time, and 
then all things are made plain — be wise! 

But Luther was not to be bought off. 
His followers were growing in number, 
the howls of his enemies increased. 

Strong men grow through opposition 
— the plummet of feeling goes deeper, 



/IDartin SLutber 



173 



thought soars higher — vivid and stern 
personalities make enemies because they 
need them, otherwise they drowse. Then 
they need friends, too, to encourage — 
opposition and encouragement — thus do 
we get the alternating current. 

That Luther had not been publicly 
answered excepting by Tetzel's weak 
rejoinders, was a constant boast in the 
liberal camp; and that Tetzel was only fit 
to address an audience of ignorant peas- 
antry was very sure: some one else must 
be put forward worthy of Martin Luther's 
steel. 

Then comes John Eck, a priest and 
lawyer, a man in intimate touch with 
Rome, and the foremost public disputant 
and orator of his time. He proposed to 
meet Luther in public debate. In social 
station Eck stood much higher than 
Luther. Luther was a poor college pro- 
fessor in a poor little university — a mere 
pedagogue, a nobody. That Eck should 
meet him was a condescension on the part 
of Eck — as Eck explained. 

They met at the University of Leipsic 
— an aristocratic and orthodox institution, 
Eck having refused to meet Luther either 



x 74 



SLittle Journeys 



TBch anD 
Xutber 



at Erfurt or Wittenberg — wherein Eck 
was wise. 

The Bishop at Leipsic posted notices 
forbidding the dispute — this, it is believed, 
on orders from Rome, as the Church did 
not want to be known as having mixed 
in the matter. The Bishop's notices 
were promptly torn down, and Duke 
George decided that as the dispute was 
not under the auspices of the Church the 
Bishop had no business to interfere. 

The audience came for many miles. A 
gallery was set apart for the nobility. 
Thousands who could not gain admittance 
remained outside and had to be content 
with a rehearsal of the proceedings from 
those who were fortunate enough to have 
seats. 

The debate began June 27, 1519, and 
continued daily for thirteen days. 

Eck was commanding in person, deep 
of voice, suave and terrible in turn. He 
had all the graces and the power of a 
great trial lawyer. Luther's small figure 
and plain clothes were at a disadvantage 
in this brilliant throng, yet we are told 
that his high and piercing voice was heard 
much farther than Eck's. 



/IDartin Xutber 



75 



Duke George of Saxony sat on a throne 
in state, and acted as master of ceremonies. 
Wittenberg was in the minority, and the 
hundred students who had accompanied 
Luther were mostly relegated to places 
outside, under the windows — their ardour 
to cut off coat-tails had quite abated. 

The proceedings were orderly and digni- 
fied, save for the marked prejudice against 
Luther displayed by Duke George and 
the nobility. 

Luther held his own: his manner was 
self-reliant, with a touch of pride that 
perhaps did not help his cause. 

Eck led the debate along by easy stages 
and endeavoured to force Luther into 
anger and unseemliness. 

Luther's friends were pleased with their 
champion — Luther stated his case with 
precision and Eck was seemingly van- 
quished. 

But Eck knew what he was doing — he 
was leading Luther into a defence of the 
doctrines set forth by Huss. And when 
the time was ripe, Eck, in assumed aston- 
ishment, cried out, "Why this is exactly 
that for which Huss the heretic was tried 
and rightly condemned!" He very skil- 



SJebate 



176 



Xittle 3ourneps 



Ube 
•(Results 



fully and slyly gave Luther permission 
to withdraw certain statements, to which 
Luther replied with spirit that he took 
back nothing, "and if this is what Huss 
taught, why God be praised for Huss." 

Eck had gotten what he wanted — a 
defence of Huss who had been burned 
at the stake for heresy. 

Eck put his reports in shape and took 
them to Rome in person, and a demand 
was made for a formal Bull of Excom- 
munication against Martin Luther. 

Word came from Rome that if Luther 
would amend his ways and publicly dis- 
avow his defence of Huss, further proceed- 
ings would cease. The result was a volley 
of Wittenberg pamphlets re-stating, in 
still bolder language, what had already 
been put forth. 

Luther was still a good Catholic, and 
his quarrel was with the abuses in the 
Church, not with the Church itself. Had 
the Pope and his advisers been wise 
enough they would have paid no attention 
to Luther, and thus allowed opinion inside 
the Church to change, as it has changed 
in our day. Priests and preachers every- 
where now preach exactly the things for 



rtDartin Xutber 



i 77 



which Huss, Wyclif, Ridley, Latimer, and 
Tyndale forfeited their lives. 

But the Pope did not correctly gauge 
the people — he did not know that Luther 
was speaking for fifty-one per cent of all 
Germany. 

Orders were given out in Leipsic from 
pulpits, that on a certain day all good 
Catholics should bring such copies of 
Martin Luther's books as they had in their 
possession to the public square, and the 
books would there be burned. 

On October 9th, the Bull of Excom- 
munication mentioning Luther and six of 
his chief sympathisers, reached Witten- 
berg, cutting them off from the Church 
forever. 

Luther still continued to preach daily, 
and declared that he was still a Catholic 
and that as popes had made mistakes 
before, so had Pope Leo erred this time. 
With the bull came a notice that if Luther 
would recant, the bull would be withdrawn 
and Luther would be reinstated in the 
Church. 

To which Luther replied, " If the bull 
is withdrawn I will still be in the Church." 

Bonfires of Luther's books now burned 



lutber 
munfcateb 



i 7 8 



3Little Journeys 



TKUttcns 

berg 
3Bonficc 



bright in every town and city of Christen- 
dom — even in London. 

Then it was that Wittenberg decided 
to have a bonfire of its own. A printed 
bill was issued calling upon all students 
and other devout Christians to assemble 
at nine o'clock on the morning of December 
10, 1520, outside the Elster gate, and 
witness a pious and religious spectacle. 
A large concourse gathered, a pyre of 
fagots was piled high, the Pope's Bull of 
Excommunication was solemnly placed 
on top, and the fire was lighted by the 
hand of Martin Luther. 



179 



VI 



THE theses prepared by Tetzel had 
small sale. People had heard all 
these arguments before, but Luther's 
propositions were new. 

Everything that Luther said in public 
now was taken down, printed, and passed 
along; his books were sold in the market 
places and at the fairs throughout the 
Empire. Luther glorified Germany, and 
referred often to the Deutsche Theologie, 
and this pleased the people. The jealousy 
that existed between Italians and Germans 
was fanned. 

He occasionally preached in neighbour- 
ing cities, and always was attended by an 
escort of several hundred students. Once 
he spoke at Nuremberg and was enter- 
tained by that great man and artist, Albert 
Diirer. Everywhere crowds hung upon 
his words and often he was cheered and 



lutbec's 
popularity 



i8o 



Xittle 3ourneps 



Zbc ipope's 
Summons 



applauded, even in churches. He de- 
nounced the extravagance and folly of 
ecclesiastical display, the wrong of robbing 
the poor in order to add to the splendour 
of Rome, he pleaded for the right of private 
interpretation of the Scriptures, and argued 
the need of repentance and a deep personal 
righteousness. 

Not only was Luther the most popular 
preacher of that day, but his books outsold 
all other authors. He* gave his writings 
to whoever would print them, and asked 
for no copyright or royalties. 

A request came from the Pope that he 
should appear at Rome. 

Such a summons is considered man- 
datory, and usually this letter, although 
expressed in the gentlest and most com- 
plimentary way, strikes terror to the heart 
of the receiver. It means that he has 
offended or grieved the head of the Church 
— God's vicegerent on earth. 

In my own experience I have known 
several offending priests to receive this 
summons ; I never knew of one who dared 
to disregard the summons ; I never knew of 
one who received it who was not filled with 
dire foreboding; and I never knew an 



flDartin SLutber 



181 



instance where the man was humiliated or 
really punished. 

A few years ago the American news- 
papers echoed with the name of a priest 
who had been particularly bold in certain 
innovations. He was summoned to Rome 
and this was the way he was treated as told 
me with his own lips; and he further in- 
formed me that he ascertained it was the 
usual procedure. 

The offender arrives in Rome full of the 
feeling that his enemies have wrongfully 
accused him, he knows charges have been 
filed against him, but what these charges 
are he is not aware. He is very much dis- 
turbed and very much in a fog. His 
reputation and character, aye! his future 
is at stake. 

Before the dust of travel is off his 
clothes, before he shaves, washes his face, 
or eats, he appears at the Vatican, and 
asks for a copy of the charges that have 
been brought against him. 

One of the Pope's numerous secretaries, 
a cardinal possibly, receives him gra- 
ciously, almost affectionately, and wel- 
comes him to Rome in the name of the 
Pope. As for any matter of business, 



©ffen&er's 
Hrrfval 
in 1Rome 



182 



Xittle Journeps 



Ube 
Ipilflrim'e 
Surprise 



why it can wait, the man who has it in 
charge is out of the city for a day or so — 
rest and enjoy the splendour of the Eter- 
nal City. 

"Where is the traveller's lodging?" 

"What? not that— here ! "—a bell is 
rung, a messenger is called, the pilgrim's 
luggage is sent for, and he is given a room 
in the Vatican itself, or in one of the 
nearby "Colleges." A Brother is called 
in, introduced, and duly instructed to 
attend personally on His Grace the Pil- 
grim. Show him the wonders of Rome 
— the churches, art galleries, the Pantheon, 
the Appian Way, the Capitol, the Castle 
— he is one of the Church's most valued 
servants, he has come from afar — see that 
he has the attention accorded him that 
is his due. 

The pilgrim is surprised, a trifle re- 
lieved, but not happy. He remembers 
that those condemned to die are given 
the best of food ; but he tries to be patient, 
and so he accepts the brother's guid- 
ance to see Rome — and then die, if he 
must. 

The days are crowded full — visitors come 
and go. He attends this congregation 



/IDartin Xutber 



183 



and that — fetes, receptions, pilgrimages 
follow fast. 

The cloud is still upon him — he may 
forget it for an hour, but each day 
begins in gloom — uncertainty is the only 
hell. 

At last he boldly importunes and asks 
that a day shall be set to try his case. 

Nobody knows anything about his case 
— charges — what charges! However, a 
committee of cardinals wish to see him, 
why, yes, Thursday at ten o'clock! 

He passes a sleepless night, and appears 
at the time appointed, haggard, yet firm, 
armed with documents. 

He is ushered into the presence of the 
cardinals. They receive him as an equal. 
A little speech is made, complimenting 
him on his good work, upon his upright- 
ness, and ends by a gentle caution con- 
cerning the wisdom of making haste 
slowly. 

Charges? There are no charges against 
the pilgrim — why should there be! And 
moreover, what if there are? Good men 
are always maligned. He has been sum- 
moned to Rome that the cardinals might 
have his advice. 



Hn tbe 
presence 

of tbe 
Cardinals 



1 84 



Xittle Sourness 



The Pope will meet him to-morrow in 
order to bestow his personal blessing. 

It is all over — the burden falls from his 
back. He gasps in relief and sinks into a 
chair. 

The greatness of Rome and the kindness 
and courtesy he has received have sub- 
dued him. 

Possibly there is a temporary, slight re- 
duction of position — he is given another 
diocese or territory, but there is a promise 
of speedy promotion — there is no humilia- 
tion. The man goes home subdued, 
conquered by kindness, happy in the 
determination to work for the Church 
as never before. 

Rome binds great men to her — she does 
not drive them away — her policy is wise, 
superbly, splendidly wise. 



VII 



i8-5 



LUTHER was now beyond the pale — 
the Church had no further power to 
punish him, but agents of the Church, being 
a part of the government, might proceed 
against him as an enemy of the State. 

Word came that if Luther would cease 
writing and preaching, and quietly go 
about his teaching in the university, he 
would not be troubled in any way. 

This only fired him to stronger ex- 
pression. He issued a proclamation to 
the German Nation, appealing from the 
sentence of the Pope, stating he was an 
Augustinian monk, a Doctor of Theology, 
a preacher of truth, with no stain upon his 
character. He declared that no man in 
Italy or elsewhere had a right to order 
him to be silent, and no man or set of men 
could deprive him of a share in God's 
kingdom. 



Xutber's 

pros 

clamation 



1 86 



Xtttle Sourness 



fftet>etick'B 
Bttltufce 



He called upon all lovers of liberty who 
hoped for heaven to repudiate the " Baby- 
lonish Captivity, ' ' — only by so doing 
could the smile of God be secured. Thus 
did Martin Luther excommunicate the 
Pope. j 

Frederick the Elector of Saxony pre- 
served a strictly neutral attitude. Martin 
Luther was his subject, and he might 
have proceeded against him on a criminal 
charge, and was hotly urged to do so, but 
his reply was, "Hands off." 

The city of Worms was at this time the 
political capital of Germany. A yearly 
congress, or Diet, was held by the Em- 
peror and his Electors, to consider matters 
of special import to the State. 

As Frederick refused to proceed against 
Luther, an appeal was made to the Emperor 
Charles V., asking that Luther be com- 
pelled to appear before the Diet of Worms 
and make answer to the charges that 
would there be brought against him. 

It was urged that Luther should be 
arrested and carried to Worms and there 
be confined in the castle until the Diet 
should meet; but Charles had too much 
respect for Frederick to attempt any such 



/iDartin Xutber 



187 



high-handed procedure — it might mean 
civil war. Gladly would he have ignored 
the whole matter, but a cardinal from 
Rome was at his elbow, sent purposely 
to see that Luther should be silenced — 
silenced as Huss was, if necessary. Charles 
was a good Catholic — and so was the 
Elector Frederick for that matter. Fred- 
erick was consulted and agreed that if 
the Emperor would issue a letter of " safe 
conduct ' ' and send a herald to personally 
accompany Rev. Dr. Luther to Worms, 
the Elector would consent to the pro- 
ceedings. 

The letter sent summoning Luther to 
Worms was an exceedingly guarded docu- 
ment. It addressed the excommunicated 
heretic as " honorable, beloved, and pious," 
and begged him to accept the company 
and safe conduct of the bearer to Worms 
and there kindly explain to the Emperor 
the import of his books and doctrines. 

This letter might have been an invi- 
tation to a banquet, but Luther said it 
was an invitation to a holocaust, and 
many of his friends so looked upon it. 
He was urged to disregard it, but his re- 
ply was, "Though the road to Worms 



Ube 
Emperor's 
Summons 



1 88 



SLittle Sourness 



arrival at 
TKBorms 



were lined with devils I'd go just the 
same." 

No more vivid description of Luther's 
trial at Worms has been given than that 
supplied by Dr. Charles Beard. This 
man was neither Catholic nor Protestant, 
so we cannot accuse him of hand-illumining 
the facts to suit his fancy. Says Dr. 
Beard : 



Towards noon on the 16th of April, 1521, 
the watchers on the tower gate of Worms gave 
notice by sound of trumpet that Luther's 
cavalcade was drawing near. First rode 
Deutschland the herald; next came the 
covered carriage with Luther and three 
friends; last of all Justus Jonas on horseback, 
with an escort of knights who had ridden 
out from Worms to meet them. The news 
quickly spread, and though it was dinner 
time, the streets were thronged, and two 
thousand men and women accompanied the 
heretic to his lodging in the house of the 
Knights of St. John. Here he was close to 
the Elector, while his companions in his 
lodging were two Saxon councillors. Ale- 
andro the Papal Nuncio sent out one of his 
servants to bring him news; he returned with 
the report that as Luther alighted from his 
carriage a man had taken him into his arms, 



/IDarttn 3Lutber 



and having touched his coat three times, 
had gone away glorying as if he had touched 
a relic of the greatest saint in the world. On 
the other hand, Luther looked round about 
him, with his demoniac eyes, and said, "God 
will be with me. " 

The audience to which \ Luther was sum- 
moned was fixed for 4 p.m., and the fact was 
announced to him by Ulrich von Pappenheim, 
the hereditary marshal of the Empire. When 
the time came there was a great crowd as- 
sembled to see the heretic, and his conduc- 
tors Pappenheim and Deutschland were 
obliged to take him to the hall of audience 
in the Bishop's Palace through gardens and 
by back ways. There he was introduced 
into the presence of the Estates. He was a 
peasant and a peasant's son, who, though he 
had written bold letters to Pope and prelate, 
had never spoken face to face with the great 
ones of the land, not even with his own 
elector, of whose good will he was assured. 
Now he was bidden to answer, less for himself 
than for what he believed to be the truth of 
God, before the representatives of the double 
authority by which the world is swayed. The 
young Emperor looked at him with impassive 
eyes, speaking no word either of encourage- 
ment or rebuke. Aleandro represented the 
still greater, the intrinsically superior power 



JBefore tbe 
Dtet of 
TKHormg 



190 



SLittle Sourness 



Questions 



of the successor of Peter the Vicar of Christ. 
At the Emperor's side stood his brother 
Ferdinand, the new founder of the House of 
Austria, while round them were grouped six 
out of the seven electors, and a crowd of 
princes, prelates, nobles, delegates of free 
cities, who represented every phase of German 
and ecclesiastical feeling. 

It was a turning point of modern European 
history, at which the great issues which 
presented themselves to men's consciences 
were greater still than they knew. 

The proceedings began with an injunction 
given by Pappenheim to Luther that he was 
not to speak unless spoken to. Then John 
von Eck, official general of the Archbishop 
of Trier, champion of the Leipsic deputation, 
first in Latin, then in German, put, by im- 
perial command, two questions to Luther. 
First, did he acknowledge these books here 
present — showing a bundle of books which 
were circulated under his name — to be his 
own? and, secondly, was he willing to with- 
draw and recall them and their contents, or 
did he rather adhere to and persist in them? 
At this point, Schurf, who acted as Luther's 
counsel, interposed with the demand, "Let 
the titles be read." The official, in reply, 
recited, one by one. the titles of the books 
comprised in the collected edition of Luther's 



/IDartin SLutber 



191 



works published at Basel, among which were 
the Commentaries on the Psalms, the Sermon 
of Good Works, the Commentary on the 
Lord's Prayer, and besides these, other 
Christian books, not of a contentious kind. 

Upon this, Luther made answer, first in 
German, then in Latin, that the books were 
his. 

The form of procedure had been com- 
mitted by the Emperor to Eck, Glapion, and 
Aleandro, and it may have been by their 
deliberate intention that Luther was now 
asked, whether he wished to defend all the 
books which he had acknowledged as his 
own, or to retract any part of them? He 
began his answer in Latin, by an apology 
for any mistakes that he might make in 
addressing personages so great, as a man 
versed, not in courts, but in monk cells; then, 
repeating his acknowledgment of the books, 
proceeded to divide them into three classes. 
There were some in which he had treated the 
piety of faith and morals so simply and evan- 
gelically that his very adversaries had been 
compelled to confess them useful, harmless, 
and worthy of Christian reading. How could 
he condemn these? There were others in 
which he attacked the Papacy and the doc- 
trine of the Papists, who both by their 
teachings and their wretched examples have 



Xutber's 
Speecb 



192 



Xtttle Journeys 



Xutber's 
Speecb 



wasted Christendom with both spiritual and 
corporal evil. Nor could any one deny or 
dissimulate this, since the universal ex- 
perience and complaint bear witness, that 
by the laws of the Pope and the doctrines of 
men, consciences are miserably ensnared 
and vexed, especially in this illustrious 
German nation. If he should revoke these 
books, what would it be but to add force to 
tyranny, and to open, not merely the win- 
dows, but the doors to so great impiety? In 
that case, good God, what a cover of wicked- 
ness and tyranny would he not become! 
A third class of his books had been written 
against private persons, those, namely, who 
had laboured to protect the Roman tyranny 
and to undermine the piety which he had 
taught. In these he confessed that he had 
been more bitter than became his religion 
and profession. Even these, however, he 
could not recall, because to do so would be to 
throw his shield over tyranny and impiety, 
and to augment their violence against the 
people of God. From this he proceeded to 
ask for evidence against himself and a fair 
trial, adducing the words of Christ before 
Annas: "If I have spoken evil, bear witness 
of the evil. " Then, with a touch of his 
native boldness, he told his audience that it 
needed to beware lest the reign of this most 



flDartin Stutber 



193 



excellent youth, Prince Charles, should be- 
come unhappy and of evil omen. "I might," 
he continued, "illustrate the matter more 
copiously by scriptural examples — as Pha- 
raoh, the King of Babylon, the Kings of Israel 
— -who most completely ruined themselves 
at the moment when by wisest counsels they 
were zealous to strengthen and pacify their 
kingdoms. For it is He who taketh the 
wise in their own craftiness, and overturns 
the mountains before they know it. There- 
fore it is needful to fear God. I do not say 
these things because my teaching or admo- 
nition is necessary to persons of such emi- 
nence, but because I ought not to withhold 
from Germany my due obedience. And with 
these things I commend myself to your most 
serene majesty, and to your lordships, humbly 
asking that you will not suffer me to be 
brought into ill repute by the efforts of my 
adversaries. I have spoken. " 

This speech spoken as it was with steady 
composure and a voice that could be clearly 
heard by the whole assembly, did not satisfy 
the official. His first demand was that like 
the question to which it was in answer, it 
should be repeated in German. Next Eck 
proceeded to point out that Luther's errors 
which were the errors of former heretics, 
Wyclif, Huss, and the like, had been suffi- 



Xutber's 
Speecb 



194 



Xittle Sourness 



H Simple 
Bnswer 



ciently condemned by the Church, and par- 
ticularly by the Council of Constanz. If 
Luther were willing to recant them, the 
Emperor would engage that his other works, 
in which they were not contained, should be 
tenderly handled; if not, let him recollect the 
fate of other books condemned by the Church. 
Then, with the customary exhortation to all 
theological innovators, not to set their own 
opinions against those of apostles, saints, and 
martyrs, the official said that what he wanted 
was a simple and straightforward answer; 
was Luther willing to recant or not? To 
which Luther replied: "Since your most 
serene Majesty and your Lordships ask for a 
simple answer, I will give it, after this fashion. 
Unless I am convinced by witness of Scripture 
or plain reason (for I do not believe in the 
Pope or in councils alone, since it is agreed 
that they have often erred and contradicted 
themselves), I am overcome by the Scriptures 
which I have adduced, and my conscience is 
caught in the word of God. I neither can nor 
will recant anything, for it is neither safe nor 
right to act against one's conscience. " Then 
having given this answer in both languages, 
he added in German, " God help me. Amen. " 
The semblance of trial, which alone was 
allowed to Luther, was now over; it only 
remained to pass sentence. Early on the 



jflDartin Xutber 



19s 



morning of the 19th of April, the Emperor 
summoned the Diet once more to take counsel 
upon the matter. The Estates asked for 
time to deliberate; on which the Emperor 
replying that he would first give them his 
own opinion, produced a document written 
in his own hand. Beginning with the state- 
ment of his descent from Emperors, Kings of 
Spain, Archdukes of Austria, and Dukes of 
Burgundy, all of whom had lived and died 
faithful sons of the Church and defenders of 
the Catholic faith, it announced the identity 
of his policy with theirs. Whatever his prede- 
cessors had decreed in matters ecclesiastical, 
whatever had been decided by the Council 
of Constanz and other councils he would 
uphold. Luther had set himself against the 
whole of Christendom, alleging it to be, both 
now and for a thousand years past, in error 
and only himself in possession of the truth. 
The Estates had heard the obstinate answer 
which he had made the day before; let him 
be no further heard, and let him be taken 
back whence he came, the terms of his safe 
conduct being carefully observed; but let 
him be forbidden to preach, nor suffer to 
corrupt the people with his vile doctrine. 
"And as we have before said, it is our will 
that he should be proceeded against as a 
true and evident heretic. " 



-Cbe 

Emperor's 

TOW 



196 



VIII 



lutber's 
peril 



THE difference between heresy and trea- 
son, at one time, was very slight. 
One was disloyalty to the Church, the 
other disloyalty to the State. 

Luther's peril was very great. The 
coils had been deliberately laid for him, 
and he had as deliberately placed his neck 
in the noose. Surely his accusers had 
been very patient — every opportunity had 
been given him to recant. 

Aleandro, the Papal Nuncio, argued 
that in the face of such stubborn con- 
tumacy and insult to both Pope and Em- 
peror, the Emperor would be justified in 
cancelling his safe conduct and arresting 
Luther then and there. His offence in 
refusing to retract was committed at 
Worms and his trial should be there — 
and there he should be executed. 



flDartin SLutber 



197 



The Elector Frederick was a stronger 
man far in personality than was the Em- 
peror Charles. "The promise of safe 
conduct must be kept," said Frederick, 
and there he rested, refusing to argue the 
merits of the case by a word, one way or 
the other. 

Frederick held the life of Luther in his 
hand — a waver, a tremor, and the fagots 
would soon crackle : for the man who pleads 
guilty and refuses pardon there is short 
shift. 

Luther started back for Saxony. All 
went well until he reached the Black 
Forest within the bounds of the domain 
of Frederick; when behold the carriages 
and little group of horsemen were sur- 
rounded by an armed force of silent and 
determined men. Luther made a stout 
defence and was handled not over gently. 
He was taken from his closed carriage 
and placed upon a horse — his friends and 
guard were ordered to be gone. 

The darkness of the forest swallowed 
Luther and his captors. 

News soon reached Wittenberg and the 
students mourned him as dead. 

His enemies gloried in his disappearance, 



tlafcen 
prisoner 



198 



Xxttle Sourness 



m 

2>tplomatic 
above 



and everywhere told that he had been 
struck by the vengeance of God. 

Luther was lodged in the Castle of 
Wartburg and all communication with 
the outside world cut off. 

The whole scheme was a diplomatic 
move on the part of the Elector. He ex- 
pected a demand would be made for the 
arrest of the heretic. To anticipate this 
demand he arrested the man himself; 
and thus placed the matter in position 
to legally resist should the prisoner be 
demanded. 

The Elector was the Governor, and the 
estate was what would be to us a State — 
the term "state" and "estate" being 
practically the same word. It was the 
old question of state rights, the same 
question that Hayne and Webster de- 
bated in 1830, and Grover Cleveland and 
John P. Altgeld fought over in 1894. 
The Elector Frederick prepared for a 
legal battle, and would defy the "Federal 
Arm" by force if worst came to worst. 

Luther remained a prisoner for seven 
months, and so closely guarded was he that 
he only knew by inference that his keep- 
ers were his friends. The Elector was 



fl&artin Xutber 



199 



discreet: he held no personal communi- 
cation with Luther. 

In December, 152 1, the prisoner was 
allowed to go to Wittenberg on a three 
days' parole. When he appeared at the 
University he came as one from the dead. 
The event was too serious for student 
jollification, many were struck dumb 
with astonishment and glad tears of joy 
were upon every cheek — and by common 
consent all classes were abandoned, and a 
solemn service of thanksgiving held in the 
Church, upon the door of which, four years 
before, this little college professor had 
tacked his theses. 

All understood now that Luther was a 
prisoner — he must go back to his prison. 
He admonished his hearers to be patient, 
but to be firm; cleave to what they be- 
lieved to be right, even though it led to 
the scaffold. He administered the sacra- 
ment, and through that congregation, and 
throughout Saxony, and throughout all 
Germany ran the vow, silent, solemn, serious 
that Martin Luther's defiance of papal 
authority was right. The Church was made 
for man and not man for the Church — 
and come what might this man Luther must 



On parole 



200 



Xittle Journeys 



Xtdritina 

anb 
preacbtng 



be protected even though the gutters ran 
with blood. 

When would his trial occur? Nobody 
knew — but there would be no haste. 

Luther went back to prison, but not to 
remain there. His little lease of liberty 
had been given just to see which way the 
wind lay. He was a prisoner still — a 
prisoner on parole — and if he was taken 
out of Saxony it could only be by illegal 
means. 

The action of the Elector was as wise 
and as successful a bit of legal procedure 
as ever mortal lawyer worked ; that it was 
all done without the advice, consent, or 
connivance of the prisoner, makes it 
doubly admirable. 

Luther set himself to work as never 
before, writing and preaching. He kept 
close to Wittenberg and from there sent 
forth his thunders of revolt. Outside of 
Saxony, at regular intervals, edicts were 
read from pulpits ordering any and all 
copies of Luther's writings to be brought 
forward that they might be burned. This 
advertised the work, and made it prized 
— it was read throughout all Christendom. 

That gentle and ascetic Henry VIII. of 



/IDartin Xutber 



20I 



England, issued a book denouncing Luther 
and telling what he would do with him if 
he came to England. Luther replied, a 
trifle too much in kind. Henry put in a 
pious rejoinder to the effect that the devil 
would not have Luther in hell. In their 
opinion of Luther the Pope and King 
Henry were of one mind. 

So lived Martin Luther, execrated and 
beloved. At first he sought to serve the 
Church, and later he worked to destroy 
it. After three hundred years, the Cath- 
olic Church still lives, with more com- 
municants than it had in the days of 
Luther. The fact that it still exists proves 
its usefulness. It will still live, and it will 
change as men change. The Church and 
the Pope are not the detestable things 
that Martin Luther pictured them; and 
Protestantism is not the sweet and lovely 
object that he would have us believe. All 
formal and organised religions will be 
what they are, as long as man is what 
he is — labels count for little. 

In 1525, Martin Luther married "Cath- 
arine the Nun," a most excellent woman, 
and one who rumour says had long en- 
couraged and upheld him in his works. 



lumber's 

/marriage 



202 



Xtttle Journeys 



B ffrfeno 
of tbe 
people 



Children came to bless them, and the 
picture of the great heretic sitting at his 
wooden table with little Johnny Luther 
on his knee, his loving wife by his side, 
and kind neighbours entering for a friendly 
chat, show the great reformer at his best. 

He was the son of a peasant, all his 
ancestors were peasants, as he so often 
told, and he lived like a peasant to the 
last. For himself, he wanted little. He 
sided with the people, the toilers, with 
those who struggled in the bonds of slavery 
and fear — for them he was an eye, an ear, 
a trumpet voice. 

There never lived a braver man — there 
never lived one more earnest and sincere. 
He fought freedom's fight with all the 
weapons God had given him; and for the 
liberty we now enjoy, in great degree, we 
are debtors to Martin Luther. 



EDMUND BURKE 



203 



205 



I was not, like His Grace of Bedford, swaddled and 
rocked and dandled into a legislator; nitor in ad- 
versum is the motto for a man like me. I possessed 
not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the 
arts, that recommend men to the favour and pro- 
tection of the great. I was not made for a minion 
or a tool. As little did I follow the trade of winning 
the hearts, by imposing on the understandings of 
the people At every step of my progress in life, 
for in every step I was traversed and opposed, and at 
every turnpike I met, I was obliged to show my 
passport, and again and again to prove my sole 
title to the honour of being useful to my country, 
by a proof that I was not wholly unacquainted with 
its laws and the whole system of its interests both 
abroad and at home ; otherwise no rank, no toleration 
even for me. 



Striving 

against 

©pposition 



I 



207 



IN the American Encyclopedia, a work 
I cheerfully recommend, will be found 
a statement to the effect that Edmund 
Burke was one of the fifteen children 
of his parents. Aside from the natural 
curiosity to know what became of the 
fourteen, the matter is of small moment, 
and that its truth or falsity should divide 
men is most absurd. 

Of this, however, we know — the parents 
of Burke were plain people, rescued from 
oblivion only through the excellence of 
this one son. The father was a lawyer, 
and fees being scarce, he became chief 
clerk for another barrister, and so lived 
his life and did his work. 

When Edmund Burke was born at 
Dublin in the year 1729, that famous city 
was at its flood tide of prosperity. It was 
a metropolis of commerce, art, wit, oratory, 



parentage 



208 



Xittle Journeys 



and literary culture. The one name that 
looms large to us out of that time is that 
of Dean Swift, but then there were dozens 
just as great as he — so-said. 

Edmund must have been a bright, fine, 
attractive boy, for we hear that certain 
friends of his parents combined with his 
father and they bent themselves to the 
task of sending the lad to Trinity College. 
Before this, however, he had spent some 
time at a private school kept by one 
Shackleton, a Quaker and a rare sweet 
soul, with enough of stern moral fibre in 
him that he exercised a profound and last- 
ing influence for good on young Mr. Burke. 

The boy was to be a lawyer — a great 
lawyer. The elder Burke was not a great 
lawyer, but he felt competent to raise one. 

There was another boy destined for 
fame at Trinity College while Burke was 
there, but they did not get acquainted 
then. Some years later they met in 
London, though, and talked it over. 

In countenance these two young men 
had a certain marked resemblance. Rey- 
nolds painted pictures of both Burke and 
Goldsmith, and when I looked at these 
portraits this morning, side by side, I said, 



]£bmunfc JBurfee 



209 



" Sir Joshua had n't quite got the Burke 
out of his brush before he painted Gold- 
smith. " Burke is Goldsmith grown big. 

Each had a weak chin, which was re- 
deemed by the fine, full forehead and 
brilliant eye. 

In face and features, taken as a whole, 
Burke had a countenance of surpassing 
beauty. Note the full sensuous lips, the 
clear, steady, lustrous beaming eye, the 
splendid head! There is nothing small, 
selfish, mean, or trifling about the man — 
he is open, frank, sympathetic, gentle, 
generous, and wise. 

He is a manly man. 

No wonder that even the staid and 
chilly Hannah More loved him; and little 
Miss Burney worshipped at his shrine 
even in spite of "his friendship for those 
detested rebels, the Americans; and the 
other grievous sin of persecuting that 
good man, Warren Hastings." 

Goldsmith was small in stature, apolo- 
getic in manner, hesitating, and at times 
there was a lisp in speech, which might 
have been an artistic and carefully ac- 
quired adjunct of wit, but it was not. 
Burke was commanding in stature, dig- 



XJurfte anb 
<BoU>smftb 



2IO 



Xittie Journeys 



H loutb 
witb a 

passion 



nified, suave, and in speech direct, copious, 
and elegant. Goldsmith overworked the 
minor key, but Burke merely suggests that 
it had not been omitted. 

At college young Burke did not prove a 
brilliant student — his intellect and aptitude 
it seems were a modest mouse-color, that 
escaped attention. His reading was de- 
sultory and general, with spasms of passion 
for this study or that, this author or the 
other. And he has remarked, most regret- 
fully, that all of these passions were short- 
lived, none lasting more than six weeks. 

It is a splendid sign to find a youth with 
a passion for any branch of work, or study, 
or for any author. No matter how brief 
the love — it adds a ring of growth to 
character; and if you have loved a book 
once it is easy to go back to it. In all 
these varying moods of likes and dislikes, 
Burke was gathering up material for use 
in after years. 

But his teachers did not regard it so, 
neither did his father. 

He got through college after a five 
years' course, aged twenty, by the grace 
of his tutors. He knew everything ex- 
cepting what was in the curriculum. 



II 



211 



TALL, handsome, with hair black as the 
raven's wing, and eyes that looked 
away off into space, dreamy and uncon- 
cerned, was Edmund Burke at twenty. 

His father was a business lawyer, with 
a sharp nose for technicalities, quirks, and 
quillets, but the son studied law as a 
literary curiosity. Occasionally there were 
quick chidings, answered with irony 
needlessly calm; then the good wife and 
mother would intervene with her tears, and 
the result was that Burke the elder would 
withdraw to the open air to cool his 
coppers. Be it known that no man can 
stand out against his wife and son when 
they in love combine. 

Finally it was proposed that Edmund 
go to London and take a course of law at 
the Middle Temple. The plan was ac- 
cepted with ill-concealed alacrity. Father 



Stuping 
law 



212 



Xlttle Journeys 



Sfnft or 
Swim 



and son parted with relief, but the good- 
bye between mother and son tore the 
hearts of both — they were parting forever, 
and something told them so. 

It evidently was the intention of Burke 
the elder, who was a clear-headed practical 
person, competent in all petty plans, that 
if the son settled down to law and got his 
"call," then he would be summoned back 
to Dublin and put in a way to achieve 
distinction. But if the young man still 
pursued his desultory reading and scrib- 
bling on irrelevant themes, then the re- 
mittances were to be withdrawn and 
Edmund Burke, being twenty-one years 
of age, could sink or swim. Burke pater 
would wash his hands in innocency, having 
fully complied with all legal requirements, 
and God knows that is all any man can 
do — there ! 



Ill 



IN London-town since time began, no em- 
bryo Coke ever rapped at the bar for 
admittance — lawyers are "summoned" 
just as clergymen are "called," while other 
men find a job. In England this pretty 
little illusion of receiving a "call" to prac- 
tise law still obtains. 

Burke never received the call, for the 
reason that he failed to fit himself for it. 
He read everything but law books. He 
might have assisted a young man by the 
name of Blackstone in compiling his 
"Commentaries," as their lodgings were 
not far apart, but he did not. They met 
occasionally, and when they did they 
always discussed Spenser or Milton, and 
waxed warm over Shakespeare. 

Burke gave Old Father Antic the law as 
lavish a letter of recommendation as the 



213 



Hot Calleo 



214 



Xittle Sourness 



Ht 

©obsleic's 



legal profession ever received, and he gave 
it for the very natural reason that he had 
no use for the law himself. 

The remittances from Dublin were al- 
ways small, but they grew smaller, less 
frequent, and finally ceased. It was sink or 
swim — and the young man simply paddled 
to keep afloat upon the tide of the times. 

He dawdled at Dodsley's, visited with 
the callers, and browsed among the books. 
There was only one thing the young man 
liked better to do than to read, and that 
was to talk. Once he had read a volume 
nearly through, when Dodsley up and sold 
it to a customer — " a rather ungentle manly 
trick to play on an honest man," says 
Burke. 

It was at Dodsley's he first met his 
countryman Goldsmith, also Garrick, Bos- 
well, and Johnson. It was then that 
Johnson received that lasting impression 
of Burke, of whom he said, " Sir, if you 
met Edmund Burke, under a gateway 
where you had taken shelter for five min- 
utes to escape a shower, you would be so 
impressed by his conversation that you 
would say, 'This is a most extraordinary 
man.' " " 



)£fcmunfc JBurfee 



215 



If one knows how, or has to, he can 
live in a large city at a small expense. 
For nine years, Burke's London life is a 
tale of a garret, with the details almost 
lost in the fog. Of this time, in after 
years, he seldom spoke, not because he 
was ashamed of all the straits and shifts 
he had to endure, but because he was 
endowed with that fine dignity of mind 
which does not dwell on hardships gone 
and troubles past, but rather fixes itself 
on blessings now at hand and other bless- 
ings yet to come. Then better still, there 
came a time when work and important 
business filled every moment of the fast 
flying hours. And so he himself once 
said, "The sure cure for all private 
griefs is a hearty interest in public 
affairs. " 

The best search-light through the mist 
of those early days comes to us through 
Burke's letters to Shackleton, the son 
of his old Quaker teacher. Shackleton 
had the insight to perceive his friend was 
no common man, and so preserved every 
scrap of Burke's writing that came his 
way. 

About that time there seems to have 



Cure for 
(Briefs 



216 Xtttle Journeys 

poetfc been a sort of meteoric shower of chip- 
munk magazines, following in the lumi- 
nous pathway of the Spectator and the 
Tatler. Burke was passing through his 
poetic period, and supplied various stan- 
zas of alleged poetry to these maga- 
zines for a modest consideration. For 
one poem he received eighteen pence, as 
tearfully told by Shackleton, but we have 
Hawkins for it that this was a trifle more 
than the poem was worth. 

Of this poetry we know little, happily, 
but glimpses of it are seen in the Shackle- 
ton letters; for instance, when he asks 
his friend's criticism of such lines as these : 

The nymphs that haunt the dusky wood, 
Which hangs recumbent o'er the crystal flood. 

He speaks of his delight in ambient sun- 
sets, when gilded oceans, ghostly ships 
and the dull, dark city vanish for the 
night. Of course, such things never hap- 
pen except in books, but the practice of 
writing about them is a fine drill, in that 
it enables the writer to get a grasp on his 
vocabulary. Poetry is for the poet. 

And if Burke wrote poetry in bed, having 
to remain there in the daytime, while his 



jEbmunb JBur^e 



217 



landlady was doing up his single ruffled 
shirt for an evening party, whose business 
was it? 

When he was invited out to dinner he 
did the meal such justice that he needed 
nothing the following day; and the wel- 
come discovery was also made that fasting 
produced an exaltation of the " spiritual 
essence that was extremely favourable to 
writing good poetry." 

Burke had wit, and what Johnson called 
a "mighty affluence of conversation"; 
so his presence was welcome at the Turk's 
Head. Burke and Johnson were so thor- 
oughly well matched as talkers that they 
respected each other's prowess and never 
with each other clinched in wordy warfare. 
Johnson was an arch Tory; Burke the 
leader of the Whigs, but Ursa was wise 
enough to say," 1 11 talk with him on any 
subject but politics." This led Gold- 
smith to remark, " Dr. Johnson browbeats 
us little men, but makes quick peace with 
those he cannot down." Then there 
were debating societies, from one of 
which he resigned because the limit of 
a speech was seven minutes; but finally 
the time was extended to fifteen minutes 



JButfce an& 
5obnson 



218 



SLittle Journeys 



Stimulate 
ing TSns 
vironment 



in order to get the Irish orator back. 

During these nine years, once referred 
to by Burke as the "Dark Ages," he had 
four occupations, — book browsing at Dods- 
ley's, debating in the clubs, attending 
the theatre on tickets probably supplied 
by Garrick, who had taken a great fancy 
to him, and his writing. 

No writing man could wish a better 
environment than this — the friction of 
mind with strong men, books, and the 
drama stirred his emotions to the printing 
point. 

Burke's personality made a swirl in 
the social sea that brought the best 
straight to him. 

One of the writers that Burke most 
admired was Bolingbroke, that man of 
masterly mind and mighty tread. His 
paragraphs move like a phalanx, and in 
every sentence there is an argument. No 
man in England influenced his time more 
than Bolingbroke. He was the inspirer 
of writers. Burke devoured Bolingbroke, 
and when he took up his pen, wrote with 
the same magnificent, stately minuet step. 
Finally he was full of the essence of Boling- 
broke to the point of saturation, and then 



Bfcmunfc JSurfte 



219 



he began to criticise him. Had Boling- 
broke been alive Burke would have quar- 
relled with him — they were so much alike. 
As it was, Burke contented himself by 
writing a book in Bolingbroke's style, 
carrying the great man's arguments one 
step further with intent to show their 
fallacy. The paraphrase is always a com- 
plement, and is never well done excepting 
by a man who loves the original and is a 
bit jealous of him. 

If Burke began his Vindication of 
Natural Society, with intent to produce 
a burlesque, he missed his aim, and came 
very near convincing himself of the truth 
of his proposition. And in fact, the book 
was hailed by the rationalists as a vindi- 
cation of Rousseau's philosophy. 

Burke was a conservative rationalist, 
which is something like an altruistic 
pessimist. In the society of rationalists 
Burke was a conservative, and when with 
the conservatives he was a rationalist. 
That he was absolutely honest and sincere 
there is not a particle of doubt, and we will 
have to leave it to the psychologists to tell 
us why men hate the thing they love. 

The Vindication of Natural Society is 



IDtn&fcation 

of matucal 
Society 



220 



Xittle Sourness 



B Great 
JB00& 



a great book, and the fact that in the 
second edition Burke had to explain it 
was an ironical paraphrase, does not con- 
vince us that it was. The things prophe- 
sied have come about and the morning 
stars still sing together. Wise men are 
more and more learning by inclining their 
hearts toward nature. Not only is this 
true in pedagogics, but in law, medicine, 
and theology as well. Dogma has less 
place now in religion than ever before; 
many deeply religious men eschew the 
creed entirely, and in all pulpits may be 
heard the sublime truths of simple honesty 
and kindness; being quite enough basis 
for a useful career. That is good which 
serves. Religions are many and diverse, 
but reason and goodness are one. 

Burke's attempt to prove that without 
"revealed religion" mankind would sit in 
eternal darkness, makes us think of the 
fable of the man who planted potatoes, 
hoed them, and finally harvested the crop. 
Every day when this man toiled there was 
another man who sat on the fence, chewed 
a straw, and looked on. And the author 
of the story says that if it were not 
for the Bible, no one would have ever 



B&munfc Burfte 



221 



known to whom the potatoes belonged. 

Burke wrote and talked as all good men 
do, just to clear the matter up in his own 
mind. Our wisest moves are accidents. 
Burke's first book was of a sort so striking 
that both sides claimed it. Men stopped 
other men on the street and asked if they 
had read the Vindication; at the coffee- 
houses they wrangled and jangled over it; 
and all the time Dodsley smiled and rubbed 
his hands in glee. 

Burke soon blossomed out in clean ruffled 
shirt every morning, and shortly moved to a 
suite of rooms, where before he had received 
his mail and his friends at a coffee-house. 

Then came William Burke, a distant 
cousin, and together they tramped off 
through rural England, loitering along 
flowering hedge-rows, and stopping at 
quaint inns, where the villagers made 
guesses as to whether the two were gentle- 
men out for a lark, smugglers, or Jesuits 
in disguise. 

One of these trips took our friends to 
Bath, and there we hear they were lodged 
at the house of a Dr. Nugent, an excellent 
and scholarly man. William Burke went 
back to London and left Edmund at Bath 



Country 



222 Xtttle Sourness 

»urfte'0 deep in pursuit of the sublime. Dr. 
Nugent had a daughter, aged twenty, 
beautiful, gentle, and gracious. The reader 
can guess the rest. 

That Burke's wife was a most amiable 
and excellent woman there is no doubt. 
She loved her lord, believed in him, and 
had no other gods before him. But that 
she influenced his career directly or through 
antithesis, there is no trace. Her health 
was too frail to follow him — his stride 
was terrific — so she remained at home, and 
after every success he came back and told 
her of it, and rested his great, shaggy 
head in her lap. 

Only one child was born to them, and 
this boy closely resembled his mother 
in intellect and physique. This son passed 
out early in life, and so with Edmund 
died the name. 



IV 



223 



THE next book Burke launched was the 
one we know best, On the Sublime. 
The original bore the terrifying title, A 
Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our 
Ideas Concerning the Sttblime and Beau- 
tiful. This book consists of one hundred 
and seventeen chapters, each chapter 
dealing with some special phase of the 
subject. It is the most searching and 
complete analysis of an abstract theme 
of which I know. It sums the subject 
up like an essay by Herbert Spencer, and 
disposes of the case once and forever. 
It is so learned that only a sophomore 
could have written it, and we quite for- 
give the author when we are told that it 
was composed when he was nineteen. 

The book proved Burke's power to 
follow an idea to its lair, and its launching 
also launched the author upon the full 



©n tbe 
Sublime 



224 



Xtttle 3ourneps 



Butbodts 

on 
Bmerica 



tide of polite society. Goldsmith said, 
"We will lose him now," but Burke still 
stuck by his coffee-house companions and 
used them as a pontoon to bridge the 
gulf 'twixt Bohemia and Piccadilly. 

In the meantime he had written a book 
for Dodsley on English Settlements in 
North America, and this did Burke more 
good than any one else, as it caused him 
to focus his inquiring mind on the New 
World. After this man began to write 
on a subject, his intellect became luminous 
on the theme, and it was his forevermore. 

At routs and fetes and four-o'clocks, 
Burke was sought as an authority on 
America. He had never been there — only 
promised himself to go — for a sick wife 
held him back. In the meantime he had 
seen every man of worth who had been to 
America, and had sucked the orange dry. 
Macaulay gives the idea when he describes 
Burke's speech at the Warren Hastings 
trial. Burke had never been to India, 
Macaulay had, but that is nothing. Says 
Macaulay: 

[When Burke spoke] the burning sun; the 
strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa 
tree; the rice-field; the tank; the huge trees, 



]£&mun& Burke 



225 



older than the Mogul Empire, under which the 
village crowds assemble, the thatched roof of 
the peasant's hut, the rich tracery of the 
mosque where the Imaum prays with his 
face to Mecca, the drums, the banners and 
gaudy idols, the devotee swinging in the air, 
the graceful maiden with the pitcher on 
her head, descending the steps to the river- 
side, the black faces, the long beards, the 
yellow streaks of sect, the turbans and the 
flowing robes, the spears and the silver maces, 
the elephants with their canopies of state, the 
gorgeous palanquin of the prince, and the 
close litter of the noble lady — all these things 
were to him as familiar as the objects which 
lay on the road between Beaconsfield and 
St. James Street. All India was present 
to the eye of his mind — from the halls where 
suitors laid gold and perfumes at the feet of 
sovereigns, to the wild moor where the 
gipsy camp was pitched; from the bazaar, 
humming like a beehive with the crowd of 
buyers and sellers, to the jungle where the 
lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings 
to scare away the hyenas. He had just as 
lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares 
as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the 
execution of Nuncomar as of Dr. Dodd. Op- 
pression in Bengal was to him the same thing 
as oppression in the streets of London. 



flDacauIas 

on 

JSurfee 



226 



Xittle Journeys 



Single 

Speecb 

Hamilton 



The wide encompassing quality of 
Burke's mind made him a man among 
men. Just how much he lent his power 
in those early days to assist those in high 
places who needed him, we do not know. 
Such services were sacred to him — done 
in friendship and in confidence, and held 
as steadfast as a good lawyer holds the 
secrets of his client. 

No doubt though, but that the one 
speech which gave glory and a nickname 
to Single Speech Hamilton was written 
by Burke. It was wise, witty, and pro- 
found — and never again did Hamilton do 
a thing that rose above the dull and deadly 
mediocre. 

It was a rival of Burke's who said, " He 
is the only man since Cicero who is a great 
orator, and who can write as well as he 
can talk." 

That Burke wrote the lectures of Sir 
Joshua Reynolds is now pretty generally 
believed; in fact, that he received the 
goodly sum of four thousand pounds for 
writing these lectures, has been proved 
to the satisfaction of a jury. Burke never 
said he wrote the Reynolds lectures, and 
Sir Joshua left it to his valet to deny it. 



Bfcmunfc Burfee 



227 



But read the lectures now and you will see 
the stately step of Bolingbroke, and the 
insight, wit, and gravity of the man who 
said, " Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of 
privilege : If it is the pleasure of the House 
that all the heaviest folios known to us 
should be here read aloud, I am in honour 
bound to graciously submit, but only this 
I ask, that proceedings shall be suspended 
long enough for me to send home for my 
night-cap." 



1Re$nott>0 

lectures 



228 



private 
Secretary. 



PRESENTLY Burke graduated from 
doing hack work for William Gerard 
Hamilton to the position of his private 
secretary — Hamilton had been appointed 
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and so highly 
did he prize Burke's services that he had 
the government vote him a pension of 
three hundred pounds a year. This was 
the first settled income Burke had ever re- 
ceived, and he was then well past thirty 
years of age. But though he was in sore 
straits financially, when he perceived that 
the intent of the income was to bind him 
into the exclusive service of his patron, he 
resigned his office and refused the pension. 
Without knowing how wisely he was 
acting, Burke, by declining the pension 
and affronting Lord Hamilton, had done 
the very thing that it was most expedient 
to do. 



E&munfc JSurfee 



229 



When Hamilton could not buy his man, 
he foolishly sought to crush him, and this 
brought Burke for the first time into the 
white light of publicity. 

I suppose it is fully understood that the 
nobility of England are not necessarily 
either cultured or well-read. Literature 
to most of the titled gentry is a blank, my 
lord — it is so now and always has been so. 
Burke's brilliant books were not sufficient 
to make him famous excepting among 
the elect few, but the episode with Lord 
Hamilton set the gossips by the ears, and 
all who had never read Burke's books now 
pretended they had. 

Burke was a national character — such 
a man merely needs to be known to be 
wanted — strong men are always needed. 
The House of Commons opened its doors 
to him — several boroughs competing with 
each other for the favour of being repre- 
sented by him. 

A political break-up with opportunity 
came along, and we find the Marquis of 
Rockingham made Premier, and Edmund 
Burke his secretary. It was Fitzherbert 
who recommended Burke to Rockingham, 
and Fitzherbert is immortal for this and 



B 

national 

Cbatactet 



230 



SLtttle Journeys 



1Rocfctng= 
bam anb 

JButKc 



for the fact that Johnson used him to point 
a moral. Said Dr. Johnson, "A man is 
popular more through negative qualities 
than positive ones. Fitzherbert is the 
most acceptable man in London because 
he never overpowers any one by the su- 
periority of his talents, makes no man 
think worse of himself by being his rival, 
seems always ready to listen, does not 
oblige you to hear much from him, and 
never opposes what you say." 

With Rockingham and Burke it was a 
case of the tail wagging the dog, but Burke 
and Rockingham understood each other, 
and always remained firm friends. 

I believe it was John J. Ingalls who 
said America had never elected but one 
first-class man for president, and he was 
chosen only because he was unknown. 

Rockingham could neither make a speech 
nor write a readable article; but he was 
kindly disposed, honest, and intelligent, 
and had a gracious and winning presence. 
He lives in history to-day chiefly because 
Edmund Burke was associated with him. 

Burke was too big a man for Premier — 
such men have to be kept in subjection 
— the popular will is wise. Men like 



Efcmunfc Burke 



231 



Burke make enemies — common folks can- 
not follow them in their flight, and in their 
presence we feel "like a farmer in the 
presence of a sleight-of-hand man. " 

To have life, and life in abundance 
is the prayer of every strong and valiant 
soul. But men are forever running away 
from life — getting into " positions, " monas- 
teries, communities, and now and again 
cutting the cable of existence by suicide. 
The man who commits suicide usually 
leaves a letter giving a reason — most any 
reason is sufficient, — he was looking for a 
reason and when he thought he had found 
it, he seized upon it. 

Life to Edmund Burke was the gracious 
gift of the gods, and he was grateful for 
it. He ripened slowly. 

Arrested development never caught him 
— all the days of his life his mind was ex- 
panding and reaching out touching every 
phase of human existence. Nothing was 
foreign to him, nothing that related to hu- 
man existence was small or insignificant. 
When the home-thrust was made that 
Ireland had not suffered more through 
the absenteeism of her landlords than 
through the absenteeism of her men of 



B 

Gracious 
©ift 



23 



3Little Journeys 



Uoucb of 
Erin 



genius, Burke made the reply that Ireland 
needed friends in the House of Commons 
more than at home. 

Burke loved Ireland to the last, and his 
fine loyalty for her people doubtless cost 
him a seat in the Cabinet. In moments 
of passion his tongue took on a touch of 
the old sod which gave Fox an oppor- 
tunity of introducing a swell bull, " Burke's 
brogue is worth going miles to see. " And 
once when Burke was speaking of Amer- 
ica he referred to the wondrous forests 
" where the hand of man had never trod. " 
Fox arose to a point of order. And this 
was a good deal easier on the part of Fox 
than to try to meet his man in serious 
debate. 

Burke's was not the primrose path of 
dalliance. He fought his way inch by 
inch. Often it was a dozen to one against 
him. In one speech he said, "The min- 
ister comes down in state attended by 
beasts clean and unclean. He opens his 
budget and edifies us with a speech — 
one-half the house goes away. A second 
gentleman gets up and another half goes, 
and a third gentleman launches a speech 
that rids the house of another half. 



JEfcmunfc JSurfee 



2 33 



A loud laugh here came in, and Burke 
stopped and said he was most happy if a 
small dehorned Irish bull of his could put 
the House in such good humour, and went 
on with his speech. Soon, however, there 
were cries of "Shame!" from the Tories 
who thought Burke was speaking dis- 
respectfully of the King. 

Burke paused and said, " Mr. Speaker, I 
have not spoken of the King except in 
high esteem — I prize my head too well 
for that. But I do not think it necessary 
that I should bow down to his man- 
servant, his maid-servant, his ox, or his 
ass" — and he fixed his intrepid gaze upon 
the chief offender. 

Nature's best use for genius is to make 
other men think; to stir up things so sedi- 
mentation does not take place ; to break the 
anchylosis of self-complacency; and start 
the stream of public opinion running so it 
will purify itself. 

Burke was an agitator — not a leader. 
He had the great gift of exaggeration, 
without which no man can be a great 
orator. He painted the picture large, 
and put the matter in a way that com- 
pelled attention. For thirty years he was 



Bn 

agitator 



234 



Xtttle Sourness 



Ubree 

points of 

View 



a most prominent figure in English politics 
— no great measure could be passed with- 
out counting on him. His influence held 
dishonesty in check, and made oppression 
pause. 

History is usually written from one of 
three points of view — political, literary, or 
economic. Macaulay stands for the first. 
Taine for the second, Buckle for the third. 
Each writer considers his subject supreme. 
When we speak of the history of a country 
we usually refer to its statesmen. 

Politicians live the lives of moths as 
compared with the lasting influence of 
commerce that feeds, houses, and clothes, 
says Buckle. 

Rulers govern, but it is literature that 
enlightens, says Taine. 

Literature and commerce are made 
possible only through the wisdom of states- 
men, says Macaulay. 

Edmund Burke's business was state- 
craft; his play was letters; but he lives 
for us through letters. 

He had two sets of ardent friends, his po- 
litical associates, and that other little group 
of literary cronies made up of Johnson, 
Goldsmith, Boswell, Reynolds, andGarrick. 



jEfcmunfc Burke 



2 35 



With these his soul was free — his sense 
of sublimity then found wings — the vo- 
cabulary of Johnson, the purling poetry 
of Goldsmith, the grace of Garrick's 
mimicry, the miracle of Reynolds's pencil 
and brush — these ministered to his hungry 
heart. 

They were forms of expression. 

All life is an expression of spirit. 

Burke's life was dedicated to expression. 

He expressed through speech, personal 
presence, and written words. Who ever 
expressed in this way so well? And — 
stay! — who ever had so much that was 
worth while to express? 



H 

%lfc of 
Sjpregsion 



WILLIAM PITT 



237 



! 39 



Time was when slaves were exported like cattle 
from the British Coast and exposed for sale in the 
Roman market. These men and women who were 
thus sold were supposed to be guilty of witchcraft, 
debt, blasphemy, or theft. Or else they were 
prisoners taken in war — they had forfeited their 
right to freedom, and we sold them. We said they 
were incapable of self-government and so must be 
looked after. Later we quit selling British slaves, 
but began to buy and trade in African humanity. 
We silenced conscience by saying, "It's all right — 
they are incapable of self-government." We were 
once as obscure, as debased, as ignorant, as barbaric, 
as the African is now. I trust that the time will 
come when we are willing to give to Africa the 
opportunity, the hope, the right to attain to the 
same blessings that we ourselves enjoy. 

William Pitt on Abolition of Slavery in 
England. 



IPIea for 
Equal 
ttigbts 



241 



THE law of heredity has been de- 
scribed as that law of our nature 
which provides that a man shall resemble 
his grandmother — or not, as the case may 
be. 

What traits are inherited and what 
acquired — who shall say? Married folks 
who resort to the happy expedient of pro- 
curing their children at orphan asylums 
can testify to the many times they have 
been complimented on the striking resem- 
blance of father to daughter, or son to 
mother. 

Possibly that is all there is of it — we 
resemble those with whom we associate. 
Far be it from me to say the final word 
on this theme — I would not if I could, de- 
prive men of a problem they can never 
solve. When all questions are answered, 
it will be time to telephone the undertaker. 



law of 
f)ere&tts 



242 



3Little Sourness 



(Breat 
/Den's 

©reatSons 



That men of genius do not reproduce 
themselves after the flesh is an axiom, 
but that William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 
did, is brought forth as an exception, 
incident, accident, or circumstance, just 
according to one's mood at the moment. 

"Great men do have great sons!" we 
cry. " Just look at the Pitts, the Adamses, 
the Walpoles, the Beechers, the Booths, 
the Bellinis, the Disraelis!" and here we 
begin to falter. And then the opposition 
takes it up and rattles off a list of great 
men whose sons were spendthrifts, gam- 
blers, ne'er-do-wells, and jackanapes. 

When Pitt the Younger made his first 
speech in the House of Commons, he 
struck thirteen. The members of the 
House were amazed. 

"He's not a chip off the old block," 
they said. 

"He 's the block itself," said Burke. 

Lord Rosebery, who had the felicity 
to own a Derby winner, once said of Pitt, 
"He was bred for speed, but not for 
endurance. " 






flDen'j 
Create. 



»urn 



. do ha 



i tl 
just 



William Pitt 
From the painting by Brompton 



; of g 



d bk 



\ 






II 



243 



SINCE the subject of heredity always 
seems to come up when the Pitts are 
mentioned, it may be proper for us to go 
back and trace pedigree a bit, to see if we 
have here the formula for producing a 
genius. 

The grandfather of William Pitt the 
elder, was Thomas Pitt, a sea-captain, 
trader, and gentleman adventurer. In 
fact, he was a bold buccaneer, but not too 
bold, for he gave large sums to church and 
charity and showed his zeal for virtue 
by once hanging three smugglers in chains, 
high up on a gibbet overlooking the coast 
of Cornwall, and there the bodies were 
left until the birds of prey and the elements 
had bleached their bones. 

Thomas Pitt was known as "Diamond 
Tom" through bringing from India and 
selling to the Regent Orleans the largest 



" 2>famon& 
Uom" 



244 Xittle Sourness 



Sarum 



diamond, I believe, ever owned in England. 
For this diamond, Tom received one 
hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds 
— a sum equal to one million dollars. 
That Diamond Tom received this money 
there is no doubt, but where and how 
he got the diamond nobody seems to know, 
and in his own time it was deemed in- 
delicate to inquire. 

Tom might have wasted that money 
right shortly — there are several ways 
of dissipating a fortune — but he wisely 
decided to found a house. That is to say 
— he bought a borough — the borough of 
Old Sarum, the locality that was to become 
famous as the "rotten borough" of the 
Reform Bill. 

He bought this borough and all the 
tenants outright from the government, 
just as we bought the Filipinos at two 
dollars per head. All the people who lived 
in the borough had to pay tribute, taxes, 
or rent to Tom, for Tom owned the tenures. 
They had to pay, run away, or have their 
heads cut off. Most of them paid. 

If the time were at our disposal it might 
be worth while to let this brochure extend 
itself into a picture of how all the land 



Milliam pitt 



245 



in England once belonged to the Crown, 
and how this land was transferred at will 
to Thomas, Richard, and Henry for cash 
or as reward for services rendered. It was 
much the same in America — the govern- 
ment once owned all the land, and then 
this land was sold, given out to soldiers, 
or to homesteaders who would clear the 
land of trees, and later we reversed the 
proposition and gave the land to those 
who would plant trees. 

There was this similarity, too, between 
English and American land laws: the 
Indians on the land in America had to pay, 
move, or be perforated. For them to pay 
rent or work out a road tax, was quite out 
of the question. Indians, like the Irish, 
will not pay rent, so we were compelled 
to evict them. 

But there was this difference in America : 
the owner of the land could sell it; in 
England he could not. The law of entail 
has been much modified, but as a general 
proposition the land owner in England 
has the privilege of collecting the rent, 
and warning off poachers, but he cannot 
mortgage the land and eat it up. This 
keeps the big estates intact, and is a very 



Xan& Xaws 



246 SLittle Sourness 

iRobcrt good scheme. Under a similar law in the 
mt United States, Uncle Billy Bushnell or 
Ali Baba might live in Hot Springs, 
Arkansas, and own every foot of East 
Aurora, and all of us would then vote 
as Baron Bushnell or Sir Ali dictated, thus 
avoiding much personal animus at Town 
Meetin' time. 

But no tenure can be made with death 
— he can neither be bought, bribed, cajoled, 
nor intimidated. Diamond Tom died, and 
his eldest son Robert came into possession 
of the estate. 

Now Robert was commonplace and 
beautifully mediocre. It is one of Nature's 
little ironies at the expense of the law 
of entail, that she will occasionally send 
out of the spirit realm, into a place of 
worldly importance, a man who is a regular 
chump. Robert Pitt, son of Diamond 
Tom, escaped all censure and unkind critic- 
ism by doing nothing, saying nothing, and 
being nothing. 

But he proved procreant and reared a 
goodly brood of sons and daughters — all 
much like himself, save one, the youngest 
son. 

This son, by name William Pitt, very 



KHilUam JMtt 



247 



much resembled Diamond Tom, his illus- 
trious grandfather — Nature bred back. 
William was strong in body, firm in 
will, active, alert, intelligent. Times had 
changed or he might have been a bold 
buccaneer, too. He was all his grand- 
father was, only sand-papered, buffed, and 
polished by civilisation. 

He was sent to Eton, and then to Trinity 
College, Oxford, where buccaneer instincts 
broke out and he left without a degree. 
Two careers were open to him, as to all 
aspiring sons of Noble Beef-eaters — he 
could enter the Church or the army. 

He chose the army, and became in due 
course the first cornet of his company. 

His elder brother Thomas was very 
naturally a member of the House of 
Commons for Old Sarum, and later sat 
for Oakhampton. Another of Nature' s 
little ironies here outcrops: Thomas, who 
was named for his illustrious grandfather 
— he of the crystallised carbon — did not 
resemble his grandfather nearly so much 
as did his younger brother William. So 
Thomas with surprising good sense named 
his brother for a seat in the House of 
Commons from Old Sarum. 



XEbe 

youngest 
Son 



248 



Xtttle Sourness 



Udell 
Equipped 



William was but twenty-seven years of 
age when he began his official career, but 
he seemed one who had leaped into life 
full armed. He absorbed knowledge on 
every hand. Demosthenes was his idol, 
and he, too, declaimed by the sea-shore 
with his mouth full of pebbles. His 
splendid command of language was ac- 
quired by the practice of translation and re- 
translation. Whether Greek or Latin ever 
helped any man to become a better thinker 
is a mooted question, but the practice of 
talking off in your own tongue a page of 
a foreign language is a mighty good way 
to lubricate your English. 

William Pitt had all the graces of a 
great orator — he was deliberate, self- 
possessed, positive. In form he was rather 
small, but he had a way of carrying himself 
that gave an impression of size. He was 
one of the world's big little men — the type 
of Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Ben- 
jamin Harrison, and John D. Long. In 
the House of Commons he lost no time 
in making his presence felt. He was 
assertive, theatrical, declamatory — still, 
he usually knew what he was talking about. 
His criticisms of the government so ex- 



TlXllUltam JMtt 



249 



asperated Sir Robert Walpole that Walpole 
used to refer to him as " that terrible cor- 
net of horse." Finally Walpole had him 
dismissed from the army. This instead 
of silencing the young man really made 
matters worse, and George II., who patron- 
ised the opposition when he could not 
down it, made him groom of the bed- 
chamber to the Prince of Wales. This 
was an office lined with adipose, with no 
work to speak of. 

The feeling is that Pitt revealed his 
common clay by accepting the favour. He 
was large enough to get along without 
such things. 

In most of the good old " School Speak- 
ers " was an extract from a speech supposed 
to have been delivered by Pitt on the 
occasion of his being taunted by Horatio 
Walpole on account of his youth. Pitt 
replied in language something like this: 
" It is true that I am young, yet I '11 get 
over that; but the man who is a fool will 
probably remain one all his days." 

The speech was reported by a lout of a 
countryman, Samuel Johnson by name, 
who had come up to London to make his 
fortune, and found his first work in re- 



Common 
Claie 



250 



Xittle Journeys 



Samuel 
3obnson, 
tteportcr 



porting speeches in the House of Commons. 
Pitt did not write out his speeches for the 
press, weeks in advance, according to 
latter day methods ; the man who reported 
them had to have a style of his own — 
and certainly Johnson had. Pitt was 
much pleased with Johnson's reports of his 
speeches, but on one occasion mildly said, 
"Ah, Mr. Johnson — you know — I do not 
exactly remember using that expression!" 

And Samuel Johnson said, "Sir, it is 
barely possible that you did not use the 
language as I have written it out ; but you 
should. " Just how much Johnson we get 
in Pitt's printed speeches is still a topic for 
debate. 

Pitt could think on his feet, while 
Samuel Johnson never made but one 
speech and broke down in that. But 
Johnson could write, and the best of Pitt's 
speeches are those reported by Ursa Major 
in a style superbly Johnsonese. The 
member from Old Sarum once sent John- 
son two butts of canary and a barrel of 
white-bait, as a token of appreciation for 
his skill in accurate reporting. 

Pitt followed the usual course of suc- 
cessful reformers, and in due time lined 



•matlliam flMtt 



251 



up on the side of the conservatives, and 
gradually succumbed to a strictly aristo- 
cratic disease, gout. Whether genius is 
transmissible or not is a question, but all 
authorities agree as to gout. 

Pitt's opposition to the Walpoles was 
so very firmly rooted that it continued 
for life, and for this he was rewarded by 
the Duchess of Marlborough with a legacy 
of ten thousand pounds. Her Grace was 
the mother of the lady who had the felicity 
to have her picture painted by Gains- 
borough, which picture was brought to 
America and secreted here for many years 
and finally was purchased for sixty-five 
thousand dollars by Pierpont Morgan, 
through the kind offices of my friend 
Patricius Sheedy, Philistine-at-Large. 

The Duchess in her will said she gave 
the money to Pitt as "an acknowledgment 
of the noble defence he had made for the 
support of the laws of England." But 
the belief is that it was her hatred for 
Walpole that prompted her admiration 
for Pitt. And her detestation of Wal- 
pole was not so much political as senti- 
mental — a woman's love affairs being 
much more to her than patriotism, but the 



©^position 

totbe 
TJWalpolcs 



252 



Xtttle Sourness 



loss of 
Ipopularits 



Duchess being a woman deceived herself 
as to reasons. Our acts are right, but 
our reasons seldom are. I leave this 
Marlborough matter with those who are 
interested in the psychology of the heart — 
merely calling attention to the fact that 
although the Duchess was ninety when 
she passed out, the warm experiences of 
her early womanhood were very vivid in 
her memory. If you wish to know when 
love dies out of a woman's brain, you will 
have to ask some one who is older than 
was the Duchess of Marlborough. 

When George II. died, and his grandson 
George III. came into power, Pitt resigned 
his office in the Cabinet and abandoned 
politics. 

At last he found time to get married. 
He was then forty-six years of age. 

Men retire from active life, but seldom 
remain upon the shelf, — either life or 
death takes them down. In five years' 
time we find the King offering Pitt any- 
thing in sight, and Mr. Pitt, the Great 
Commoner, became Viscount Pitt, Earl 
of Chatham. 

By this move Pitt lost in popularity 
more than he had gained in dignity — there 



William flMtt 



253 



was a complete revulsion of feeling toward 
him by the people, and he never again 
attained the influence and power he had 
once known. 

Burke once referred to a certain pro- 
posed bill as " insignificant, irrelevant, 
pompous, creeping, explanatory, and am- 
biguous — done in the true Chathamic 
style." 

But the disdain of Burke was really 
complimentary — it took a worthy foe to 
draw his fire. Chatham's faults were 
mostly on the surface, and were more a 
matter of manner than of head or heart. 
America has cause to treasure the memory 
of Chatham. He opposed the Stamp 
Act with all the vigour of his tremendous 
intellect, and in the last speech of his 
life he prophesied that the Americans would 
never submit to taxation without repre- 
sentation, and that all the power of Eng- 
land was not great enough to subdue 
men who were fighting for their country. 
Yet his appeal to George III. and his 
minions was like bombarding a fog. But 
all he said proved true. 

On the occasion of this last great speech 
Chatham was attended by his favourite son 



ffvient) of 
Bmerica 



: 54 



Xtttle Journeys 



William, then nineteen years old. Proud 
as was this father of his son, he did not 
guess that in four short years this boy 
would, through his brilliancy, cast his own 
splendid efforts into the shadow; and that 
Burke, the querulous, would give the son 
a measure of approbation never vouch- 
safed to the father. 

William Pitt, the younger, is known as 
the " Great Pitt, " to distinguish him from 
his father, who in his day was known as 
the greatest man in England. 



Ill 



2 55 



WILLIAM PITT, the second son of 
the Earl of Chatham, was born of 
poor but honest parents, in the year 1759. 
That was the year that gave us Robert 
Burns — between whom and Pitt, in some 
respects, averages were held good. The 
same year was born William Wilberforce, 
philanthropist and emancipator, father of 
Canon Wilberforce. 

At this time the fortunes of William 
Pitt the elder were at full flood. England 
was in a fever of exultation — drunk with 
success. Just where the thought got 
abroad that the average Englishman is 
moderate in success and in defeat not 
cast down, I do not know. But this I 
have seen: All London mad, howling, 
exultant, savage drunk, because of the 
report that the Red Coats had sub- 
jugated this colony or that. To subdue, 



TJDUIlfam 
Pitt tbe 
lounger 



256 



Xittle Sourness 



]£nglieb 
Victories 



crush, slay, and defeat, has caused 
shrieking shouts of joy in London since 
London began — unless the slain were 
Englishmen. 

This is patriotism, concerning which 
Samuel Johnson, reporter in the House 
of Commons, once made a remark slightly 
touched with acerbity. 

In the years 1758 to 1759, not a month 
passed but bonfires burned bright from 
Cornwall to Scotland in honour of English 
victories on land and sea. In Westphalia, 
British Infantry defeated the armies of 
Louis XV. ; Boscawen had sunk a French 
fleet; Hawke put to flight another; Am- 
herst took Ticonderoga; Clive destroyed 
a Dutch armament; Wolfe achieved vic- 
tory and a glorious death at Quebec; 
English arms had marched triumphant 
through India and secured for the tight 
little island an empire, while another had 
been gained on the shores of Ontario. 

For all this the Great Commoner re- 
ceived most of the glory; and that this 
tremendous popularity was too great to 
last is but a truism. 

But in such a year it was that William 
Pitt was born. His father was fifty years 



William pitt 



257 



old, his mother about thirty. This mother 
was a woman of rare grace, intellect, and 
beauty, the only sister of two remarkable 
brothers — George Grenville, the obstinate 
adviser of George III., the man who did 
the most to make America free — unin- 
tentionally — and the other brother was 
Richard Earl Temple, almost equally 
potent for right or wrong. 

That the child of a sensitive mother, 
born amid such a crash of excitement, 
should be feeble was to be expected. No 
one at first expected the baby to survive. 

But the tenderness and care brought 
him through, and he grew into a tall, 
spindling boy whose intellect far out- 
matched his body. He was too weak to 
be sent to take his place at a common 
school, and so his father and mother 
taught him. 

Between the father and son there grew 
up a fine bond of affection. Whenever 
the father made a public address the boy 
was there to admire and applaud. 

The father's declining fortunes drove 
him back to his family for repose, and 
all of his own ambitions became centred 
in his son. With a younger man this 



a 

Beltcate 
Gbift 



^ 



Xfttle Journeys 



ff atber ant> 
Son 



might not have been the case, but the 
baby boy of an old man means much 
more to him than a brood coming early. 

Daily this boy of twelve or fourteen, 
would go to his father's study to recite. 
Oratory was his aim, and the intent was 
that he should become the greatest parlia- 
mentarian of his time. 

This little mutual admiration society 
composed of father and son, speaks vol- 
umes for both. Boys reaching out toward 
manhood, when they are neither men nor 
boys, often have little respect for their 
fathers — they consider the pater to be 
both old-fashioned and tyrannical. And 
the father, expecting too much of the 
son, often fails in faith and patience; but 
there was no such failure here. Chatham 
personally superintended the matter of 
off-hand translation, and this practice was 
kept up daily from the time the boy was 
eight years old, until he was nineteen, 
when his father died. 

Then there was the tutor Pretyman who 
must not be left out. He was a combina- 
tion valet and teacher, and the most pe- 
dantic and idolatrous person that ever 
moused through dusty tomes. With a 



Militant pitt 



259 



trifle more adipose and a little less in- 
tellect, he would have made a most suc- 
cessful and awful butler. He seemed a 
type of the English waiter who by some 
chance had acquired a college educa- 
tion, and who never said a wrong thing 
nor did a right one during his whole 
life. 

Pretyman wrote a Life of Pitt, and 
according to Macaulay it enjoys the dis- 
tinction of being the worst biography ever 
written. Lord Rosebery, however, de- 
clares the book is not so bad as it might 
be. I believe there are two other bio- 
graphies equally stupid — Weems's Life of 
Washington and the book on Gainsborough 
by Thicknesse. Weems's book was written 
to elevate his man into a demi-god; 
Thicknesse was intent on lowering his 
subject and exalting himself; while Prety- 
man extols himself and his subject equally, 
revealing how William Pitt could never 
have been William Pitt were it not for his 
tutor. Pretyman emphasises trifles, 
slights important matters, and waxes 
learned concerning the irrelevant. 

A legacy coming to Pretyman, he 
changed his name to Tomline, as women 



Pretg* 

man's life 

of Pitt 



260 



Xtttle Journeys 



change their names when they marry or 
enter a convent. 

Religion to Pitt was quite a perfunctory 
affair, necessary, of course; but a bishop 
in England was one who could do little 
good and, fortunately, not much harm. 
With an irony too subtle to be seen by 
but very few, Pitt when twenty-seven years 
of age made his old tutor Bishop of Win- 
chester. Tomline proved an excellent 
and praiseworthy bishop; and his obse- 
quious loyalty to Pitt led to the promise 
that if the Primacy should become vacant, 
Tomline was to be made Archbishop of 
Canterbury. 

This promise was told by the unthinking 
Tomline, and reached the ears of George III. , 
a man who at times was very much alert. 

There came a day when the Primacy 
was vacant, and to head off the nomina- 
tion by Pitt, the King one morning at eight 
o'clock walked over to the residence of 
Bishop Manners Somers and plied the 
knocker. 

The servant who answered the sum- 
mons explained that the bishop was 
taking his bath and could not be seen 
until he had had breakfast. 



IKIiilUam pitt 



261 



But the visitor was importunate. 

The servant went back to his master 
and explained that the stout man at the 
door would neither go away nor tell his 
name, but must see his lordship at once. 

When the Bishop appeared in his dress- 
ing-gown and saw the King, he nearly had 
apoplexy. But the King quickly told his 
errand and made his friend Primate on the 
doorstep, with the butler and housemaid 
for witnesses. 

Later in the day, when Pitt appeared at 
the palace he was told that a primate had 
been appointed — the King was very sorry, 
but the present incumbent could not be 
removed unless charges were preferred. 
Pitt smilingly congratulated the King on 
the wisdom of his choice, but afterward 
referred to the transaction as "a rather 
scurvy trick." 

At twenty-three years of age, William 
Pitt entered the House of Commons from 
the same borough that his father had repre- 
sented at twenty-seven. His elder brother 
made way just as had the elder brother of 
his father. 

The first speech he made in Parliament 
fixed his place in that body. His fame 



Enters 
Ibouse of 
Commons 



262 



Xittle Sourness 



Jftrst 

Speecb 



had preceded him, and when he arose 
every seat was taken to hear the favourite 
son of the Earl of Chatham, the greatest 
orator England had ever seen. 

The subject was simply a plan of finance, 
and lacked all excuse for fine phrasing or 
flavour of sentiment. And what should 
a boy of twenty-three know about a 
nation's financial policy? 

Yet this boy knew all about it. Figures, 
statistics, results, conclusions, were shown 
in a steady, flowing, accurate, lucid man- 
ner. The young man knew his theme — 
every by-way, highway, and tracing of it. 
By that speech he proved his mathe- 
matical genius, and blazed the way 
straight to the office of Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. 

Not only did he know his theme, but he 
had the ability to explain it. He spoke 
without hesitation or embarrassment, and 
revealed the same splendid dignity that 
his father had shown, all flavoured by the 
same dash of indifference for the auditor. 
But the discerning ones saw that he sur- 
passed his father, in that he carried more 
reserve and showed a suavity that was 
not the habit of Chatham. 



William flMtt 263 

And the man was there — mighty and xove 
self-reliant. 

The voice is the index of the soul. The 
voice of the two Pitts was the same voice, 
we have been told — a deep, rich, culti- 
vated lyric-baritone. It was a trained 
voice, a voice that came from a full column 
of air, that never broke into a screech, 
rasping the throat of the speaker and the 
ear of the listener. It was the natural 
voice carefully developed by right use. 
The power of Pitt lay in his cold, calcu- 
lating intellect, but the instrument that 
made manifest this intellect was his deep, 
resonant, perfectly controlled voice. 

Pitt never married, and according to the 
biting phrase of Fox, all he knew of love 
was a description of it he got from the 
Iliad. That is to say he was separated 
from it about three thousand years. This 
is a trifle too severe, for when twenty- two 
years of age he met the daughter of Necker 
at Paris — she who was to give the world of 
society a thrill as Madame de Stael. And 
if the gossips are right it was not the fault 
of Pitt that a love match did not follow. 
But the woman gauged the man, and she 
saw that love to him would merely be an 



264 



Xtttle Journeys 



piloting 

tbeSbfpof 

State 



incident, not a consuming passion, and 
she was not the woman to write a book 
on Farthest North. She dallied with the 
young man a day, and then sent him 
about his business, exasperated and per- 
plexed. He could strike fire with men 
as flint strikes on flint, but women were 
outside his realm. 

Yet he followed the career of Madame de 
Stael, and never managed to quite get 
her out of his life. Once in his later years 
he referred to her as that " cold and trifling 
daughter of France's greatest financier." 
He admired the father more than he 
loved the daughter. 

For twenty-four years Pitt piloted Eng- 
land's ship of state. There were constant 
head winds, and now and again shifting 
gales of fierce opposition and all the time 
a fat captain to pacify and appease. This 
captain was stupid, sly, obstinate, and 
insane by turns, and to run the ship and 
still allow the captain to believe that he 
was in command was the problem that 
confronted Pitt. And that he succeeded 
as well as any living man could there is 
no doubt. 

During the reign of Pitt, England lost 



raiittiam Pitt 



265 



the American Colonies. This was not a 
defeat for England, it was destiny, Eng- 
land preserved her independence by cut- 
ting the cable that bound her to us. 

The life of Pitt was a search for power 
— to love, wealth, and fame he was 
indifferent. 

He was able to successfully manage the 
finances of a nation, but his own were left 
in a sorry muddle — at his death it took 
forty thousand pounds to cause him to be 
worth nothing. His debts were paid by 
the nation. And this indifference to his 
own affairs was put forth at the time as 
proof of his probity and excellence. We 
think now that it marked his limitations. 
His income for twenty years preceding 
his death was about fifty thousand dollars 
a year. One hour a day in auditing ac- 
counts with his butler would have made 
all secure. He had neither wife, child, 
nor dependent kinsmen, yet it was found 
that his household consumed nine hundred 
pounds of meat per week and enough beer 
to float a ship. For a man to waste his 
own funds in riotous living is only a trifle 
worse than to allow others to do the same. 

Literature, music, and art owe little to 



personal 

finances 



2 66 Xittie Sourness 



Persons 



Pitt — only lovers care for beauty — the 
alit * sensuous was not for him. He knew 
the classics, spoke French like a Parisian, 
revelled in history, had no confidantes, and 
loved one friend — Wilberforce. 

Pictures of Pitt by Reynolds and Gains- 
borough reveal a face commonplace in 
feature save for the eye — "the most 
brilliant eye ever seen in a human face." 
In describing the man, one word always 
seems to creep in, the word "haughty." 
That the man was gentle, land, and even 
playful among the few who knew him best, 
there is no doubt. The austerity of his 
manner was the inevitable result of an 
ambition the sole aim of which was to 
dictate the policy of a great nation. All 
save honour was sacrificed to this end, and 
that the man was successful in his am- 
bition, there is no dispute. 

When he died, aged forty-seven, he was 
by popular acclaim the greatest English- 
man of his time, and the passing years 
have not shaken that proud position. 



JEAN PAUL MARAT 



267 



269 



Citizens: You see before you the widow of Marat. 
I do not come here to ask your favours, such as 
cupidity would covet, or even such as would relieve 
indigence, — Marat's widow needs no more than a 
tomb. Before arriving at that happy termination 
to my existence, however, I come to ask that justice 
may be done in respect to the reports recently put 
forth in this body against the memory of at once 
the most intrepid and the most outraged defender 
of the people. 

Simonne Evrard Marat, to the Convention. 



B "Kcaueet 



271 



THE French Revolution traces a lineal 
descent direct from Voltaire and 
Jean Jacques Rousseau. These men were 
contemporaries ; and they came to the same 
conclusions, expressing the same thought, 
each in his own way, absolutely inde- 
pendent of the other. And as genius 
seldom recognises genius, neither knew 
the greatness of the other. 

Voltaire was an aristocrat — the friend 
of kings and courtiers, the brilliant cynic, 
the pet of the salons, and the centre of the 
culture and brains of his time. 

Rousseau was a man of the people, plain 
and unpretentious — a man without am- 
bition — a dreamer. His first writings were 
mere debating-society monologues, done 
for his own amusement and the half dozen 
or so cronies who cared to listen. 

But, as he wrote, things came to him — 



Voltaire 
an& 

IRousscau 



272 



Xtttie Sourness 



IRousseau's 

political 

iPbilosopbg 



the significance of his words became to 
him apparent. Opposition made it neces- 
sary to define his position, and threat 
made it wise to amplify and explain. He 
grew through exercise, as all men do who 
grow at all; the spirit of the times acted 
upon him, and knowledge unrolled as a 
scroll. 

The sum of Rousseau's political philo- 
sophy found embodiment in his book, 
The Social Contract, and his ideas on 
education in Lavinia. The Social Con- 
tract became the bible of the Revolution, 
and as Emerson says all of our philosophy 
will be found in Plato, so in a more exact 
sense can every argument of the men 
of the Revolution be found in The Social 
Contract. But Rousseau did not know 
what firebrands he was supplying. He 
was essentially a man of peace — he 
launched these children of his brain, in- 
differently, like his children of the flesh, 
upon the world and left their fate to the 
god of chance. 



our) 



1Rou00cau' 

political 

pbfloftopb 



;cam 

He 



s ideas on 



Jean Paul Marat 
From the engraving by W. H. Egleton 



ti of his brain 






nh^A: 









II 



273 



OUT of the dust and din of the French 
Revolution, now seen by us on 
the horizon of time, there emerge four 
names: Robespierre, Mirabeau, Danton, 
and Marat. 

Undaunted men all, hated and loved, 
feared and idolised, despised and deified 
— even yet we find it hard to gauge their 
worth, and give due credit for the good 
that was in each. 

Oratory played a most important part 
in bringing about the explosion. Oratory 
arouses passion — fear, vengeance, hate 
— and draws a beautiful picture of peace 
and plenty just beyond. 

Without oratory there would have been 
no political revolution in France, or 
elsewhere. 

Politics, more than any other function 
of human affairs, turns on oratory. Ora- 
tors make and unmake kings, but kings 



©rators 

and 
politics 



2 74 



Xittle 3ourneps 



are seldom orators, and orators never 
secure thrones. Orators are made to die 
— the cross, the torch, the noose, the 
guillotine, the dagger awaits them. They 
die through the passion that they fan to 
flame — the fear they generate turns upon 
themselves, and they are no more. 

But they have their reward. Their 
names are not writ in water, rather are 
they traced in blood on history's page. 
We know them, while the ensconced smug 
and successful have sunk into oblivion; 
and if now and then a name like that of 
Pilate or Caiaphas or Judas comes to us, 
it is only because fate has linked the man 
to his victim, like unto that Roman 
soldier who thrust his spear into the side 
of the Unselfish Man. 

In the qualities that mark the four 
chief orators of the French Revolution, 
there is much alloy — much that seems 
like clay. Each had undergone an ap- 
prenticeship to fate — each had been pre- 
paring for his work ; and in this preparation 
who shall say what lessons could have been 
omitted and what not! Explosions re- 
quire time to prepare — revolutions, politi- 
cal and domestic, are a long time getting 



Jean Paul flDarat 



275 



ready. Orators, like artists, must go as 
did Dante, down into the nether regions 
and get a glimpse of hell. 



preparas 
tion 



276 



III 



H peasant 
JBob 



JEAN PAUL MARAT was exactly five 
feet high, and his weight when at his 
best was one hundred and twenty pounds 
— just the weight of Shakespeare. Jean 
Paul had a nose like the beak of a hawk, 
an eye like an eagle, a mouth that matched 
his nose, and a chin that argued trouble. 
Not only did he have red hair, but Car- 
lyle refers to him as "red-headed." 

His parents were poor and obscure 
people, and his relationship with them 
seems a pure matter of accident. He 
was born at the village of Beaudry, Switzer- 
land, in 1743. His childhood and boy- 
hood were that of any other peasant boy 
born into a family where poverty held 
grim sway, and toil and hardship never 
relaxed their chilling grasp. 

His education was of the chance kind 
— but education anyway depends upon 



Sean Paul flDarat 



277 



yourself — colleges only supply a few oppor- 
tunities, and it lies with the student 
whether he will improve them or not. 

The ignorance of his parents and the 
squalour of his surroundings acted upon 
Jean Paul Marat as a spur, and from his 
fourteenth year the idea of cultivating 
his mental estate was strong upon him. 

Switzerland has ever been the refuge 
of the man who dares to think. It was 
there John Calvin lived, demanding the 
right to his own belief, but occasionally 
denying others that precious privilege; 
a few miles away at beautiful Coppet re- 
sided Madame de Stael, the daughter of 
Necker; at Geneva Rousseau wrote, and 
to name that beautiful little island in the 
Rhone after him was not necessary to 
make his fame endure; but a little way 
from Beaudry lived Voltaire, pointing 
his bony finger at every hypocrite in 
Christendom. 

But as in Greece, in her days of glory, 
the thinkers were few; so in Switzerland, 
the land of freedom, the many have been, 
and are, chained to superstition. Jean Paul 
Marat saw that their pride was centred 
in a silver crucifix, "that keeps a man 



In tbe 
Xanfc of 
tRefuge 



278 



Xittle Sourness 



Ube land 
of promise 



from harm," their conscience committed 
to a priest ; their labours for the rich ; their 
days the same, from the rising of the sun 
to its going down. They did not love, 
and their hate was but a peevish dislike. 
They followed their dull routine and died 
the death, hopeful that they would get 
the reward in another world which was 
denied them in this. 

And Jean Paul Marat grew to scorn the 
few who would thus enslave the many. 
For priest and publican he had only 
aversion. 

Jean Paul Marat, the bantam, read 
Voltaire and steeped himself in Rousseau, 
and the desire grew strong upon him to do 
and dare, and to become. 

Tourists had told him of England, and 
like all hopeful and childlike minds, he 
imagined the excellent to be far off, and 
the splendid at a distance: Great Britain 
was to him the Land of Promise. 

In the countenance of young Marat 
was a strange mixture of the ludicrous and 
terrible. This, with his insignificant size, 
and a bodily strength that was a miracle 
of surprise, won the admiration of an 
English gentleman; and when the tourist 



5ean Paul flDarat 



279 



started back for Albion, the lusty dwarf 
rode on the box, duly articled, without con- 
sent of his parents, as a valet. 

As a servant he was active, alert, in- 
telligent, attentive. He might have held 
his position indefinitely, and been handed 
down to the next generation with the 
family plate, had he kept a civil tongue in 
his red head and not quoted Descartes and 
Jean Jacques. 

He had ideas, and he expressed them. 
He was the central sun below-stairs, and 
passed judgment upon the social order 
without stint, even occasionally arguing 
economics with his master, the baron, as 
he brushed his breeches. 

This baron is known to history through 
two facts — one, that Jean Paul Marat 
brushed his breeches, and second, that he 
evolved a new breed of fices. 

Now the master was rich, with an entail 
of six thousand acres and an income of 
five thousand pounds, and very naturally 
he was surprised — amazed — to hear that 
any one should question the divine origin 
of the social order. 

Religion and government being at that 
time not merely second cousins, but 



B Valet 

witfa Ideas 



28o 



Xtttle 5ourneps 



flight to 
JEofnburgb 



Siamese twins, Jean Paul had expressed 
himself on things churchly as well as 
secular. 

And now, behold, one fine day he found 
himself confronted with a charge of 
blasphemy, not to mention another damn- 
ing count of contumacy and contravention. 

In fact, he was commanded not to think, 
and was cautioned as to the sin of having 
ideas. The penalties were pointed out 
to Jean Paul, and in all kindness he was 
asked to make choice between immediate 
punishment and future silence. 

Thus was the wee philosopher raised 
at once to the dignity of a martyr ; and the 
sweet satisfaction of being persecuted for 
what he believed, was his. 

The city of Edinburgh was not far away, 
and thither by night the victim of perse- 
cution made his way. There is a serio- 
comic touch to this incident that Marat 
was never quite able to appreciate — the 
man was not a humourist. In fact, men 
headed for the noose, the block, or destined 
for immortality by the assassin's dagger, 
very seldom are jokers — John Brown and 
his like do not jest. Of all the emanci- 
pators of men, Lincoln alone stands out as 



Jean Paul /IDarat 



281 



one who was perfectly sane. An ability 
to see the ridiculous side of things marks 
the man of perfect balance. 

The martyr type, whose blood is not only 
the seed of the Church, but of heresy, is 
touched with madness. To get the thing 
done, nature sacrifices the man. 

Arriving in Edinburgh, Marat thought 
it necessary for a time to live in hiding, 
but finally he came out and was duly 
installed as bar-keeper at a tavern, and 
student in the medical department of the 
University of St. Andrew — a rather pe- 
culiar combination. 

Marat's sister and biographer, Albertine, 
tells us that Jean Paul was never given 
to the use of stimulants, and in fact, for 
the greater part of his career, was a total 
abstainer. And the man who knows 
somewhat of the eternal paradox of things 
can readily understand how this little 
tapster, proud and defiant, had a supreme 
contempt for the patrons who gulped 
down the stuff that he handed out over 
the bar. He dealt in that for which he 
had no use; and the American bartender 
to-day who wears his kohinoor and draws 
the pay of a bank cashier, is the one who 



JBars 

keeper 



282 



Xittle 3ourness 



Stuping 
AeMcine 



"never touches a drop of anything." 
The security with which he holds his 
position is on that very account. 

Marat was hungry for knowledge and 
thirsty for truth, and in his daily life he 
was as abstemious as was Benjamin 
Franklin, whom he was to meet, know, and 
reverence shortly afterward. 

Jean Paul was studying medicine at the 
same place where Oliver Goldsmith, an- 
other exile, studied some years before. 
Each got his doctor's degree, just how 
we do not know. No one ever saw Gold- 
smith's diploma — Dr. Johnson once hinted 
that it was an astral one — but Marat's is 
still with us, yellow with age, but plain 
and legible with all of its signatures and 
the big seal with a ribbon that surely 
might impress the chance sufferers waiting 
in an outer room to see the doctor, who is 
busy enjoying his siesta on the other side 
of the partition. 



IV 



283 



IF it is ever your sweet privilege to clap 
eyes upon a diploma issued by the 
ancient and honourable University of St. 
Andrew, Edinburgh, you will see that it 
reads thus: 

"Whereas: Since it is just and reason- 
able that one who has diligently attained 
a high degree of knowledge in some great 
and useful science, should be distinguished 
from the ignorant- vulgar," etc., 

The intent of the document, it will be 
observed, is to certify that the holder is 
not one of the " ignorant- vulgar, " and the 
inference is that those who are not pos- 
sessed of like certificates probably are. 

A copy of the diploma issued to Dr. 
Jean Paul Marat is before me, wherein, in 
most flattering phrase, is set forth the 
attainments of the holder, in the science 
of medicine. And even before the ink 
was dry upon that diploma, the " science' ' 



SXplomas 
of St. 
Bnorew 



284 



Xtttle Sourness 



Diplomas 

of St. 

Bnorew 



of which it boasted, had been discarded 
as inept and puerile, and a new one inaug- 
urated. And in our day, within the last 
twenty-five years, the entire science of 
healing has shifted ground and the materia 
medica of the " Centennial' ' is now con- 
sidered obsolete. 

In view of these things, how vain is a 
college degree that certifies, as the di- 
plomas of St. Andrew still certify, that 
the holder is not one of the "ignor- 
ant- vulgar !" Is not a man who prides 
himself on not belonging to the "ignor- 
ant-vulgar" apt to be atrociously ignorant 
and outrageously vulgar? 

Wisdom is a point of view, and know- 
ledge, for the most part, is a shifting 
product depending upon environment, 
atmosphere, and condition. The eternal 
verities are plain and simple, known to 
babes and sucklings, but often unseen by 
men of learning, who focus on the difficult, 
soar high, and dive deep, but seldom pay 
cash. In the sky of truth the fixed stars 
are few, and the shepherds who tend their 
flocks by night, are quite as apt to know 
them as are the professed and professional 
Wise Men of the East — and Edinburgh. 



^5 



BUT never mind our little digression — 
the value of study lies in study. The 
reward of thinking is the ability to think, 
and whether one comes to right conclu- 
sions or wrong, matters little, says John 
Stuart Mill in his essay On Liberty. 

Thinking is a form of exercise, and 
growth comes only through exercise; that 
is to say, expression. 

We learn things only to throw them 
away : no man ever wrote well until he had 
forgotten every rule of rhetoric, and no 
orator ever spake straight to the hearts of 
men until he had tumbled his elocution 
into the Irish Sea. 

To hold on to things is to lose them. 
To clutch is to act the part of the late 
Mullah Bah, the Turkish wrestler, who 
came to America and secured through his 
prowess a pot of gold. Going back to his 



©rowtb 
tbrougb 
JEyercise 



286 



Xittle 5ourne£S 



drifting to 
Xonfcon 



native country, the steamer upon which 
he had taken passage collided in mid-ocean 
with a sunken derelict. Mullah Bah, 
hearing the alarm, jumped from his berth 
and strapped to his person a belt con- 
taining five thousand dollars in gold. He 
rushed to the side of the sinking ship, 
leaped over the rail, and went to Davy 
Jones's Locker like a plummet, while all 
about frail women and weak men in life 
preservers bobbed on the surface and were 
soon picked up by the boats. The fate 
of Mullah Bah is only another proof 
that athletes die young, and that it is 
harder to withstand prosperity than its 
opposite. 

But knowledge did not turn the head 
of Marat. His restless spirit was reaching 
out for expression, and we find him drift- 
ing to London for a wider field. 

England was then as now the refuge of 
the exile. There is to-day just as much 
liberty, and a little more free speech, in 
England than in America. We have 
hanged witches and burned men at the 
stake since England has, and she emanci- 
pated her slaves long before we did ours. 
Over against the homethrust that respect- 



Jean Paul /iDarat 



287 



able women drink at public bars from 
John O'Groat's to Land's End, can be 
placed the damning count that in the 
United States more men are lynched every 
year than Great Britain legally executes 
in double the time. 

A too ready expression of the Rousseau 
philosophy had made things a bit un- 
pleasant for Marat in Edinburgh, but in 
London he found ready listeners, and 
the coffee-houses echoed back his radical 
sentiments. 

These underground debating clubs of 
London started more than one man off on 
the oratorical transverse. Swift, Johnson, 
Reynolds, Goldsmith, Garrick, Burke — 
all sharpened their wits at the coffee- 
houses. I see the same idea is now being 
revived in New York and Chicago: little 
clubs of a dozen or so will rent a room 
in some restaurant, and fitting it up for 
themselves, will dine daily and discuss 
great themes, or small, according to the 
mental calibre of the members. 

During the latter part of the eighteenth 
century these clubs were very popular in 
London. Men who could talk or speak 
were made welcome, and if the new 



SJebating 
Clubs of 

aoncon 



Xittle Sourness 



/Karat anl> 
tfranfelin 



member generated caloric, so much the 
better — excitement was at a premium. 

Marat was now able to speak English 
with precision, and his slight French accent 
only added a charm to his words. He 
was fiery, direct, impetuous. He was a 
fighter by disposition and care was taken 
never to cross him beyond a point where 
the sparks began to fly. The man was 
immensely diverting and his size was to 
his advantage — orators should be very 
big or very little — anything but common- 
place. The Duke of Mantua would have 
gloried in Jean Paul, and later might have 
cut off his head as a precautionary 
measure. 

Among the visitors at one of the coffee- 
house clubs was one Benjamin Franklin, 
big, patient, kind. He weighed twice as 
much as Marat ; and his years were sixty, 
while Marat's were thirty. 

Franklin listened with amused smiles to 
the little man, and the little man grew 
to have an idolatrous regard for the big 
'un. Franklin carried copies of a pam- 
phlet called Common Sense, written by one 
Thomas Paine. Paine was born in Eng- 
land, but was always pleased to be spoken 



3ean Paul fl>arat 



289 



of as an American, yet he called himself 
"A Citizen of the World." 

Paine 's pamphlet, The Crisis, was known 
by heart to Marat, and the success of 
Franklin and Paine as writers had fired 
him to write as well as ' ' orate . " As a result, 
we have The Chains of Slavery. The work 
to-day has no interest to us excepting as a 
literary curiosity. It is a composite of 
Rousseau and Paine, done by a sophomore 
in a mood of exaltation, and might serve 
well as a graduation essay, done in F 
major. It lacks the poise of Paine, and 
the reserve of Rousseau, and all the fine 
indifference of Franklin is noticeable by 
its absence. 

They say that Marat's name was 
"Mara" and his ancestors came from 
County Down. But never mind that — 
his heart was right. Of all the inane im- 
becilities and stupid untruths of history, 
none are worse than the statements that 
Jean Paul Marat was a demagogue, hotly 
intent on the main chance. 

In this man's character there was nothing 
subtle, secret, or untrue. He was sim- 
plicity itself, and his undiplomatic blunt- 
ness bears witness to his honest v. 



B Xftcrar? 

Curiosity 



290 



Xittle 3ourness 



In London, he lived as the mayor of 
Boston said William Lloyd Garrison lived 
— in a hole in the ground. 

His services as a physician were free 
to all — if they could pay, all right ; if not, 
it made no difference. He looked after 
the wants of political refugees, and head, 
heart, and pocket-book were at the dis- 
posal of those who needed them. His 
lodging place was a garret, a cellar — 
anywhere, he was homeless and his public 
appearances were only at the coffee- 
house clubs, or the parks where he would 
stand on a barrel and speak to the crowd 
on his one theme of liberty, fraternity, 
and equality. His plea was for the in- 
dividual. In order to have a strong and 
excellent society, we must have strong 
and excellent men and women. That 
phrase of Paine's, " The world is my coun- 
try ; to do good is my religion, " he repeated 
over and over again. 



VI 



291 



IN the year 1779, Marat moved to Paris. 
He was then thirty-six years old. In 
Paris he lived very much the same life 
that he had in London. He established 
himself as a physician, and might have 
made a decided success had he put all of 
his eggs in one basket and then watched 
the basket. 

But he did not. Franklin had inspired 
him with a passion for invention : he rubbed 
amber with wool, made a battery, and 
applied the scheme in a crude way to the 
healing art. He wrote articles on elec- 
tricity and even foreshadowed the latter 
day announcement that electricity is life. 
And all the time he discussed economics, 
and gave out through speech and written 
word his views as to the rights of the people. 
He saw the needs of the poor — he per- 
ceived how through lack of nourishment 



Electricity 

ano 
Economics 



292 



Xtttle Sourness 



Ube 

people's 

Jftteno 



there developed a craving for stimulants, 
and observed how disease and death fasten 
themselves upon the ill-fed and the ill- 
taught. To alleviate the suffering of the 
poor, he opened a dispensary as he had 
done in London, and gave free medical 
attendance to all who applied. At this 
dispensary, he gave lectures on certain 
days upon hygiene, at which times he 
never failed to introduce his essence of 
Rousseau and Voltaire. 

Some one called him "the people's 
friend. " The name stuck — he liked it. 

In August, 1789, this "terrible dwarf" 
was standing on his barrel in Paris ha- 
ranguing crowds with an oratory that was 
tremendous in its impassioned quality. 
Men stopped to laugh and remained to 
applaud. 

Not only did he denounce the nobility, 
but he saw danger in the liberal leaders, 
and among others, Mirabeau came in for 
scathing scorn. Of all the insane para- 
doxes this one is the most paradoxical — 
that men will hate those who are most 
like themselves. Family feuds, and the 
wrangles of denominations that, to out- 
siders, hold the same faith, are common. 



Sean Paul flDarat 



2 93 



When churches are locked in America, it 
is done to keep Christians out. Christians 
fight Christians much more than they fight 
the devil. 

Marat had grown to be a power among 
the lower classes — he was their friend, 
their physician, their advocate. He feared 
no interruption and never sought to 
pacify. At his belt, within easy reach, 
and in open sight, he carried a dagger. 

His impassioned eloquence swayed the 
crowds that hung upon his words to rank 
unreason. 

Marat fell a victim to his own eloquence, 
and the madness of the mob reacted upon 
him. Like the dyer's hand, he became 
subdued to that which he worked in. 
Suspicion and rebellion filled his soul. 
Wealth to him was an offence — he had 
not the prophetic vision to see the rise 
of capitalism and all the splendid indus- 
trial evolution which the world is to-day 
working out. Society to him was all 
founded on wrong premises and he would 
uproot it. 

In bitter words he denounced the As- 
sembly, and declared that all of its 
members, including Mirabeau, should be 



B Wctim 
to JEIos 
quence 



294 



Xittle Sourness 



fllMvabcau 
and dDarat 



hanged for their inaction in not giving the 
people relief from their oppressors. 

Mirabeau was very much like Marat. 
He, too, was working for the people, only 
he occupied a public office, while Marat 
was a private citizen. Mirabeau and his 
friends became alarmed at the influence 
Marat was gaining over the people, and 
he was ordered to cease public speaking. 
As he failed to comply, a price was put 
upon his head. 

Then it was that he began putting out a 
daily address in the form of a v tiny pam- 
phlet. This was at first called The Pub- 
ticiste, but was soon changed to The People's 
Friend. 

Marat was now in hiding, but still his 
words were making their impress. 

In 1 79 1, Mirabeau the terrible, died — 
died peacefully in his bed. Paris went in 
universal mourning, and the sky of Marat's 
popularity was darkened. 

Marat lived in hiding until August of 
1792, when he again publicly appeared 
and led the riots. The people hailed him 
as their deliverer. The insignificant size 
of the man made him conspicuous. His 
proud defiance, the haughtiness of his 



3ean Paul ZlDarat 



295 



countenance, his stinging words, formed 
a personality that made him the pet of the 
people. 

Danton, the Minister of Justice, dared 
not kill him, and so he did the next 
best thing — he took him to his heart and 
made him his right-hand man. It was a 
great diplomatic move, and the people 
applauded. Danton was tall, powerful, ath- 
letic and commanding, just past his thir- 
tieth year. Marat was approaching fifty, 
and his suffering while in hiding in the 
sewers had told severely on his health, but 
he was still the fearless agitator. When 
Marat and Danton appeared upon the 
balcony of the Hotel de Ville, the hearts 
of the people were with the little man. 

But behold, another man had forged to 
the front, and this was Robespierre. And 
so it was that Danton, Marat, and Robes- 
pierre formed a triumvirate, and ruled 
Paris with hands of iron. Coming in the 
name of the people, proclaiming peace, 
they held their place only through a vio- 
lence that argued its own death. 

Marat was still full of the desire to edu- 
cate — to make men think. Deprivation 
and disease had wrecked his frame until 



H Uriuma 
vlrate 



296 



Xittle Journeys 



flDarat'g 
IGUfe 



public speaking was out of the question — 
the first requisite of oratory is health. 
But he could write, and so his little paper, 
The People's Friend, went fluttering forth 
with its daily message. 

So scrupulous was Marat in money 
matters that he would accept no help 
from the government. He neither drew 
a salary nor would he allow any but 
private citizens to help issue his paper. 
He lived in absolute poverty with his 
beloved wife, Simonne Evrard. 

They had met about 1788, and between 
them had grown up a very firm and tender 
bond. He was twenty years older than 
she, but Dan ton said of her, " She has the 
mind of a man." 

Simonne had some property and was 
descended from a family of note. When 
she became the wife of Marat, her kins- 
men denounced her, refused to mention 
her name, but she was loyal to the man 
she loved. 

The Psalmist speaks of something " that 
passeth the love of woman," but the 
Psalmist was wrong — nothing does. 

Simonne Evrard gave her good name, 
her family position, her money, her life 



Jean Paul /iDarat 297 

— her soul into the keeping of Jean Paul -cinfltncb* 
Marat. That his love and gratitude to "'•]£"■ 
her were great and profound, there is 
abundant proof. She was his only servant, 
his secretary, his comrade, his friend, his 
wife. Not only did she attend him in sick- 
ness, but in banishment and disgrace she 
never faltered. She even set the type, 
and at times her arm pulled the lever of 
the press that printed the daily message. 

Let it stand to the eternal discredit of 
Thomas Carlyle that he contemptuously 
disposes of Simonne Evrard, . who repre- 
sents undying love and unflinching loyalty, 
by calling her a " washerwoman. " Car- 
lyle, with a savage strain of Scotch Cal- 
vinism in his cold blood, never knew the 
sacredness of the love of man and woman 
— to him sex was a mistake on the part 
of God. Even for the sainted Mary of 
Galilee he had only a grim and patronising 
smile, removing his clay pipe long enough 
to say to Milburn, the blind preacher, 
" Oh, yes, a country lass elevated by 
Catholics into a wooden image and wor- 
shipped as a deity!" 

Carlyle never held in his arms a child of 
his own and saw the light of love reflected 



298 



Xittle Sourness 



2>eatb of 
flDarat 



in a baby's eyes ; and nowhere in his forty- 
odd volumes does he recognise the truth 
that love, art, and religion are one. And 
this limitation gives Taine excuse for 
saying, "He writes splendidly, but it is 
neither truth nor poetry." 

When Charlotte Corday, that poor de- 
luded rustic, reached the rooms of Marat, 
under a friendly pretence, and thrust her 
murderous dagger to the sick man's heart, 
his last breath was a cry freighted with 
love, "A moi, chere amie!" 

And death-choked, that proud head 
drooped, and Simonne, seeing the terrible 
deed was done, blocked the way and held 
the murderess at bay until help arrived. 

Hardly had Marat's tired body been 
laid to rest in the Pantheon, before Char- 
lotte Corday's spirit had gone across the 
border to meet his — gone to her death by 
the guillotine that was so soon to embrace 
both Danton and Robespierre, the men 
who had inaugurated and popularised 
it. 

All Paris went into mourning for Marat 
— the public buildings were draped with 
black, and his portrait displayed in the 
Pantheon with the great ones gone. A 



Jean Paul fl&arat 



299 



pension for life was bestowed upon his 
widow, and lavish resolutions of gratitude 
were laid at her feet in loving token of 
what she had done in upholding the hands 
of this strong man. 

But Paris, the fickle, in two short years 
repudiated the pension, the portrait of 
Marat was removed from the Pantheon, 
and his body taken by night to another 
resting place. 

Simonne the widow, and Albertine the 
sister, sisters now in sorrow, uniting in a 
mutual love for the dead, lived but in 
memory of him. 

But Carlyle was right — this was a 
"washerwoman." She spent all of her 
patrimony in aiding her husband to publish 
and distribute his writings, and after his 
death, when friends proved false and even 
the obdurate kinsmen still considered her 
name pollution, she took in washing to 
earn money that she might defend the 
memory of the man she loved. 

She was a washerwoman. 

I uncover in her presence, and stand 
with bowed head in admiration of the 
woman who gave her life for liberty and 
love, and who chose a life of honest toil 



B TKUasbc 
etwoman 



3oo 



SLfttle Journeys 



•Keeping 
Bltve 

Ararat's 
flame 



rather than accept charity or all that 
selfishness and soft luxury had to offer. 
She was a washerwoman, but she was 
more — she was a woman. 

Let Carlyle have the credit of using the 
word " washerwoman" as a term of con- 
tempt, as though to do laundry work were 
not quite as necessary as to produce 
literature. 

The sister and widow wrote his life, 
republished very much that he had written, 
and lived but to keep alive the name and 
fame of Jean Paul Marat, whose sole crime 
seemed to be that he was a sincere and 
honest man and was throughout his life 
— often unwisely — the people's friend. 



ROBERT INGERSOLL 



301 



3°3 



Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. It is 
the morning and the evening star. It shines upon 
the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. 
It is the Mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and 
philosopher. It is the air and light to tired souls — 
builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every 
hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. 
It fills the world with melody — for music is the 
voice of love. Love is the magician, the enchanter 
that changes worthless things to joy, and makes 
right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is 
the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and 
without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we 
are less than beasts ; but with it, earth is heaven and 
we are gods. 



love 



I 



3°5 



HE was three years old, was Robert 
Ingersoll. There was a baby boy 
one year old, Ebon by name, then there 
was John, five years, and two elder sisters. 

Little Robert wore a red linsey-woolsey 
dress, and was a restless, active youngster 
with a big head, a round face, and a pug 
nose. No one ever asked, "What is it?" 
— there was "boy" written large in every 
baby action, and every feature from chubby 
bare feet to the two crowns of his close- 
cropped tow head. 

It was a morning in January, and the 
snow lay smooth and white over all those 
York State hills. The winter sun sent 
long gleams of light through the frost- 
covered panes upon which the children 
were trying to draw pictures. Visitors 
began to arrive — visitors in stiff Sunday 
clothes , although it was not Sunday. There 



•Robert 



3°6 



Xittie Journeps 



Ube 

fforbittoen 

parlour 



were aunts, and uncles, and cousins, and 
then just neighbours. They filled the little 
house full. Some of the men went out and 
split wood and brought in big armfuls 
and piled it in the corner. They moved 
on tiptoe and talked in whispers. And 
now and then they would walk softly into 
the little parlour by twos and threes and 
close the door after them. 

This parlour was always a forbidden 
place to the children — on Sunday after- 
noons only were they allowed to go in 
there, or on prayer-meeting night. 

In this parlour were six hair-cloth chairs 
and a sofa to match. In the centre was 
a little marble-top table and on it were 
two red books and a blue one. On the 
mantel was a plaster-of-Paris cat at one 
end and a bunch of crystallised flowers 
at the other. There was a "what-not" 
in the corner covered with little shells 
and filled with strange and wonderful 
things. There was a "store" carpet 
bright red. It was a very beautiful room, 
and to look into it was a great privilege. 

Little Robert had tried several times 
to enter the parlour this cold winter morn- 
ing, but each time he had been thrust 



IRobett f ngersoli 



307 



back. Finally he clung to the leg of a tall 
man, and was safely inside. It was very 
cold — one of the windows was open! He 
looked about with wondering baby eyes 
to see what the people wanted to go in 
there for! 

On two of the hair-cloth chairs rested 
a coffin. The baby hands clutched the 
side — he drew himself up on tiptoe and 
looked down at the still, white face — the 
face of his mother. Her hands were 
crossed just so, and in her fingers was a 
spray of flowers — he recognised them as 
the flowers she had always worn on her 
Sunday bonnet — a rusty black bonnet 
— not real flowers, just "made" flowers. 

But why was she so quiet? He had 
never seen her hands that way before 
— those hands were always busy: knit- 
ting, sewing, cooking, weaving, scrubbing, 
washing ! 

"Mamma! mamma!" called the boy. 

" Hush, little boy, hush ! Your mamma 
is dead," said the tall man, and he lifted 
the boy in his arms and carried him from 
the room. 

Out in the kitchen, in a crib in the corner, 
lay the "Other Baby," and thither little 



ITn tbe 
presence 
of 2>eatb 



308 Xittle 5ourne^s 



mm Robert made his way. He patted the 
mftct . sleeping baby brother, and called aloud in 
lisping words, "Wake up, baby, your 
mamma is dead!" 

And the baby in the crib knew quite as 
much about it as the toddler in the linsey- 
woolsey dress, and the toddler knew as 
much about death as we do to-day. This 
wee youngster kept thinking how good 
it was that mamma could have a nice 
rest — the first rest she had ever known 
— and just lie there in the beautiful room 
and hold her flowers! 



Fifty years passed. These children, 
grown to manhood, are again together. 
One, his work done, is at rest. Standing 
by his bier, the other voices these deathless 
words : 

" Life is a narrow vale between the cold 
and barren peaks of two eternities. We 
strive in vain to look beyond the heights. 
We call aloud, and the only answer is the 
echo of our wailing cry. From the voice- 
less lips of the unreplying dead there comes 
no word ; but in the night of death, hope 
sees a star and listening love can hear 
the rustle of a wing. 



IRobert flnaersoll 



3°9 



"He who sleeps here, when dying, mis- 
taking the approach of death for the re- 
turn of health, whispered with his latest 
breath, 'I am better now.' Let us be- 
lieve, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of 
fears and tears, that these dear words are 
true of all the countless dead." 



' Better 
•Wow" 






3io 



II 



m 

Ipowetful 
Ipreacbet 



THE mother of Ingersoll was a Living- 
ston — a Livingston of right royal 
lineage, tracing to that famous family of 
revolutionary fame. To a great degree 
she gave up family and social position to 
become the wife of Reverend John Inger- 
soll of Vermont, a theolog from the 
academy at Bennington. 

He was young and full of zeal — he was 
called "a powerful preacher." That he 
was a man of much strength of intellect, 
there is ample proof. He did his duty, 
said his say, called sinners to repentance 
and told what would be their fate if they 
did not accept salvation. His desire 
was to do good, and therefore he warned 
men against the wrath to come. He 
was an educated man, and all of his be- 
liefs and most of his ideas were gathered 
and gleaned from his college professors and 
Jonathan Edwards. 



IRobert flngersoll 



311 






He loved his beautiful wife and she 
loved him. She loved him just as all 
good women love, with a complete aban- 
don — with heart, mind, and strength. He 
at first had periods of such abandon, too, 
but his conscience soon made him recoil 
from an affection of which God might be 
jealous. He believed that a man should 
forsake father, mother, wife, and child in 
order to follow duty — and duty to him 
was the thing we did not want to do. That 
which was pleasant was not wholly good. 
And so he strove to thrust from him all 
earthly affections, and to love God alone. 
Not only this, but he strove to make 
others love God. He warned his family 
against the pride and pomp of the world, 
and the family income being something 
under four hundred dollars, they observed 
his edict. 

Life was a warfare — the devil constantly 
lay in wait — we must resist. This man 
hated evil — he hated evil more than he 
loved the good. His wife loved the good 
more than she hated evil, and he chided 
her — in love. She sought to explain 
her position. He was amazed at her 
temerity — what right had a woman 



•Rfgfo 

Sense of 

DutB 



312 



Xittle Journeys 



IfteaMngbs 
Stealtb 



to think — what right had any one to 
think! 

He prayed for her. 

And soon she grew to keep her thoughts 
to herself. Sometimes she would write 
them out, and then destroy them before 
any eyes but her own could read. Once 
she went to a neighbour's and saw Paine's 
Age of Reason. She peeped into its pages 
by stealth, and then put it quickly away. 
The next day she went back and read some 
more, and among other things she read 
was this, "To live a life of love and use- 
fulness — to benefit others — must bring 
its due reward, regardless of belief. " 

She thought about it more and more 
and wondered really if God could and 
would damn a person who just went 
ahead and did the best he could. She 
wanted to ask her husband about it — to 
talk it over with him in the evening — 
but she dare not. She knew too well what 
his answer would be — for her even to think 
such thoughts was a sin. And so she 
just decided she would keep her thoughts 
to herself, and be a dutiful wife, and help 
her husband in his pastoral work as a 
minister's wife should. 



IRobert flngersoli 



3 I 3 



But her proud spirit began to droop, she 
ceased to sing at her work, her face grew 
wan, yellow, and sad. Yet still she worked 
— there were no servants to distress her — 
and when her own work was done she went 
out among the neighbours and helped 
them — she cared for the sick, the infirm, 
she dressed the newborn babe, and closed 
the eyes of the dying. 

That this woman had a thirst for liberty, 
and the larger life, is shown in that she 
herself prepared and presented a memorial 
to the President of the United States pray- 
ing that slavery be abolished. So far as I 
know, this was the first petition ever 
prepared in America on the subject by a 
woman. 

This minister's family rarely remained 
over two years in a place. At first they 
were received with loving arms, and there 
were donation parties where cider was 
spilled on the floors, doughnuts ground into 
the carpets, and several hair-cloth chairs 
hopelessly wrecked. But the larder was 
filled and there was much good cheer. 

I believe I said that the Rev. John 
Ingersoll was a powerful preacher — he was 
so powerful he quickly made enemies. He 



H 

"CCloman's 
petition 



314 



Xtttle Journeps 



frequent 
Gbanges 



told men of their weaknesses in phrase so 
pointed that necks would be craned to see 
how certain delinquents took their medi- 
cine. Then some would get up and tramp 
out during the sermon in high dudgeon. 
These disaffected ones would influence 
others — contributions grew less, donations 
ceased, and just as a matter of bread and 
butter a new "call" would be angled for, 
and the parson's family would pack up — 
helped by the faction that loved them, 
and the one that did not. Good-byes were 
said, blessings given — or the reverse — and 
the jokers would say, "A change of 
pastors makes fat calves.' ' 

At one time the Rev. John Ingersoll 
tried to start an independent church in 
New York City. For a year he preached 
every Sunday at the old Lyceum Theatre, 
and here it was on the stage of the theatre, 
in 1834, that Robert G. Ingersoll was 
baptised. 

But the New York venture failed — 
starved out, was the verdict, and a coun- 
try parish extending a call, it was gladly 
accepted. 

Such a life, to such a woman, was par- 
ticularly wearing. But Mrs. Ingersoll kept 



IRobert Undersoil 



31s 



right at her work, always doing for others, 
until there came a day when kind neigh- 
bours came in and cared for her, looked 
after her household, attending this stricken 
mother — tired out and old at thirty-one, 
unaware that she had blessed the world 
by giving to it a man-child who was to 
make an epoch. 

The watchers one night straightened the 
stiffening limbs, clothed the body in the 
gown that had been her wedding-dress, 
and folded the calloused fingers over the 
spray of flowers. 

"Hush, little boy — your mamma is 
dead!" said the tall man, as he lifted the 
child and carried him from the room. 



H>eatb of 

flDrs. Arts 

gersoll 



316 



III 



bournes 



FROM the sleepy little village of Dresden, 
Yates County, New York, seven miles 
from Penn Yan, where Robert Ingersoll was 
born, to his niche in the Temple of Fame, 
was a zigzag journey. But that is nature's 
plan — we make head by tacking. And as 
the years go by, more and more, we see the 
line of Ingersoll's life stretching itself 
straight. Every change to him meant 
progress. Success is a question of temper- 
ament — it is all a matter of the red cor- 
puscle. Ingersoll was a success — happy, 
exuberant, joying in life, revelling in exist- 
ence, he marched to the front in every 
fray. 

As a boy he was so full of life that he 
very often did the wrong thing. And I 
have no doubt but that wherever he went 
he helped hold good the precedents that 
preachers' boys are not especially angelic. 



IRobert Undersoil 



3^7 



For instance, we have it on good authority 
that Bob, aged fourteen, once climbed 
into the belfry of a church and removed 
the clapper, so that the sexton thought the 
bell was bewitched. At another time he 
placed a washtub over the top of a chimney 
where a prayer-meeting was in progress, 
and the smoke broke up the meeting and 
gave the good people a foretaste of the 
place they believed in. In these stories, 
told to prove his depravity, Bob was al- 
ways climbing somewhere — belfries, steep- 
les, housetops, trees, verandas, barnroofs, 
bridges. But I have noticed that young- 
sters given to the climbing habit usually do 
something when they grow up. 

For these climbing pranks Robert and 
Ebon were duly reproved with a stout 
strap that hung behind the kitchen door. 
Whether the parsonage was in New York, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Illinois — and it 
dodged all over these states — the strap 
always travelled, too. It never got lost. 
It need not be said that the Rev. John 
Ingersoll was cruel or abusive, not at all, — 
he just believed with Solomon that to spare 
the rod was to spoil the child. He loved 
his children, and if a boy could be saved by 



Climbing 

Ipranfcs 



3i8 



Xittle Journeys 



Ht <Brant>= 
fatbec 
livings 
ston's 



so simple a means as "strap oil," he was 
not the man to shirk his duty. He was 
neither better nor worse than the average 
preacher of his day. No doubt, too, the 
poverty and constant misunderstandings 
with congregations led to much irritability 
— it is hard to be amiable on half rations. 

When a stepmother finally appeared 
upon the scene, there was more trouble for 
the children. She was a worthy woman 
and meant to be kind, but her heart was not 
big enough to love boys who carried live 
mice in their pockets and turned turtles 
loose in the pantry. 

So we find Bob and his brother bundled 
off to their Grandfather Livingston's in St. 
Lawrence County, New York. Here Bob 
got his first real educational advantages. 
The old man seems to have been a sort of 
"Foxy Grandpa": he played, romped, 
read, and studied with the boys, and possi- 
bly neutralised some of the discipline they 
had received. 

Of his childhood days Robert Ingersoll 
very rarely spoke. There was too much 
bitterness and disappointment in it all, but 
it is curious to note that when he did 
speak of his boyhood, it was always 



IRobert Undersoil 



3*9 



something that happened at " Grandfather 
Livingston's. " Finally the old grandpa 
got to thinking so much of the boys that he 
wanted to legally adopt them, and then we 
find their father taking alarm and bringing 
them back to the parsonage, which was 
then at Elyria, Ohio. 

The boys worked at odd jobs, on farms 
in summer, clerking in country stores, 
driving stage — and be it said to the credit 
of their father, he allowed them to keep 
the money they made. Education comes 
through doing things, making things, 
going without things, taking care of your- 
self, talking about things, and when Robert 
was seventeen he had education enough to 
teach a "Deestrick School" in Illinois. 

To teach is a good way to get an educa- 
tion. If you want to know all about a 
subject, write a book on it, a wise man has 
said. If you wish to know all about things, 
start in and teach them to others. 

Bob was eighteen — big and strong, with 
a good nature and an enthusiasm that had 
no limit. There were spelling-bees in his 
school, and a debating society, that had 
impromptu rehearsals every night at 
the grocery. Country people are prone 



Ueacbtng 
District 
Scbool 



32o Xittle Sourness 

ipetts to "argufying" — the greater and more 
strife weighty the question the more ready are 
the bucolic Solons to engage with it. And it 
is all education to the youth who listens and 
takes part — who has the receptive mind. 

This love of argument and contention 
among country people finds vent in law- 
suits. Pigs break into a man's garden and 
root up the potatoes, and straightway the 
owner of the potatoes "has the law" on 
the owner of the pigs. This strife is urged 
on by kind neighbours who take sides, and 
by the "setters" at the store, who fire the 
litigants on to unseemliness. Local attor- 
neys are engaged and the trial takes place 
at the railroad station, or in the school 
house on Saturday. Everybody has opin- 
ions, and over-rules the " jedge" next day, 
or not, as the case may be. 

This petty strife may seem absurd to us, 
but it is all a part of the spirit of the hive, 
as Maeterlinck would say. It is better 
than dead level dumbness — better than the 
subjection of the peasantry of Europe. 
These pioneers settle their own disputes. 
It makes them think, and a few at least are 
getting an education. This is the cradle 
in which statesmen are rocked. 



IRobert flngersoil 



321 



And so it happened that no one was 
surprised when in the year 1853, there was 
a sign tacked up over a grocery in Shawnee- 
town, Illinois, and the sign read thus: 
"R. G. & E. C. Ingersoll, Attorneys and 
Counsellors at Law." 



Stijn 



322 



IV 



H Urfp to 
Ipeoria 



SHAWNEETOWN, Illinois, was once 
the pride and pet of Egypt. It was 
larger than Chicago, and doubtless it would 
have become the capital of the state had it 
been called Shawnee City. But the name 
was against it, and dry rot set in. And so 
to-day Shawneetown has the same number 
of inhabitants that it had in 1855, and in 
Shawneetown are various citizens who 
boast that the place has held its own. 

Robert Ingersoll had won a case for a 
certain steamboat captain, and in gratitude 
the counsel had been invited by his client 
to go on an excursion to Peoria, the head 
of navigation on the Illinois River. The 
lawyer took the trip, and duly reached 
Peoria after many hairbreadth escapes on 
the imminently deadly sand-bar. But a 
week must be spent at Peoria while the 
boat was reloading for her return trip. 



IRobert Undersoil 



323 



There was a railroad war on in Peoria. 
The town had one railroad, which some 
citizens said was enough for any place; 
others wanted the new railroad. 

Whether the new company should be 
granted certain terminal facilities — that 
was the question. The route was surveyed 
but the company was forbidden to lay 
its tracks until the people said "Aye." 

So there the matter rested when Robert 
Ingersoll was waiting for the stern- wheeler 
to reload. The captain of the craft had 
meanwhile circulated reports about the 
eloquence and legal ability of his star 
passenger. These reports coming to the 
ears of the manager of the new railroad, 
he sought out the visiting lawyer and 
advised with him. 

Railroad law is a new thing, not quite 
so new as the law of the bicycle, or the 
statutes concerning automobiling, but 
older still than the legal precedents of the 
aeromotor. Railroad law is an evolution, 
and the railroad lawyer is a by-product; 
what Mr. Mantinelli would call a demni- 
tion product. 

It was a railroad that gave Robert 
Ingersoll his first fee in Peoria. The man 



B -Rafts 
toad TOlar 



3 2 4 



Xfttle Journeys 



38ob's 
Speecb at 

Peoria 



was only twenty-three, but semi-pioneer 
life makes men early, and Robert Ingersoll 
stood first in war and first in peace among 
the legal lights of Shawneetown. His size 
made amends for his cherubic face, and 
the insignificant nose was more than bal- 
anced by the forceful jaw. The young 
man was a veritable Greek in form, and his 
bubbling wit and ready speech on any 
theme made him a drawing card at the 
political barbecue. 

"Bob" at this time did not know much 
about railroads — there was no railroad in 
Shawneetown — but he was an expert on 
barbecues. A barbecue is a gathering 
where a whole ox is roasted and where 
there is much hard cider and effervescent 
eloquence. Bob would speak to the people 
about the advantages of the new railroad; 
and the opposition could answer if they 
wished. Pioneers are always ready for a 
picnic — they delight in speeches — they 
dote on argument and wordy warfare. 
The barbecue was to be across the river on 
Saturday afternoon. 

The whole city quit business to go to the 
barbecue and hear the speeches. 

Bob made the first address. He spoke 



IRobert Undersoil 



325 



for two hours about everything and any- 
thing — he told stories, and dealt in love, 
life, death, politics, and farming — all but 
railroading. The crowd was delighted — 
cheers filled the air. 

When the opposition got up to speak 
and brought forward its profound reasons 
and heavy logic, most everybody adjourned 
to the tables to eat and drink. 

Finally there came rumours that some- 
thing was going on across the river. The 
opposition grew nervous and started to go 
home, but in some mysterious way the two 
ferry boats were tied up on the farther 
bank, and were deaf and blind to signals. 

It was well after dark before the people 
reached home, and when they got up the 
next morning they found the new railroad 
had a full mile of track down and engines 
were puffing at their doors. 

Bob made another speech in the public 
square, and cautioned everybody to be 
law-abiding. The second railroad had 
arrived — it was a good thing — it meant 
wealth, prosperity, and happiness for 
everybody. And even if it did not, it was 
here and could not be removed excepting 
by legal means. And we must all be law- 



Sometbing 

•feappens 



326 



Xtttle 3ourne£s 



J6stab= 
Itsbcb in 
peoria 



abiding citizens — let the matter be deter- 
mined by the courts. Then there were a 
few funny stories, and cheers were given 
for the speaker. 



On the next trip of the little stern- 
wheeler the young lawyer and his brother 
arrived. They had not much baggage, but 
they carried a tin sign that they proceeded 
to tack up over a store on Adams Street. 
It read thus: "R. G. & E. C. Ingersoll, 
Attorneys and Counsellors at Law. " And 
there the sign was to remain for twenty-five 
years. 



3 2 7 



AT Peoria, the Ingersoll brothers did 
not have to wait long for clients. 
Ebon was the counsellor, Robert the 
pleader, and some still have it that Ebon 
was the stronger, just as we hear that 
Ezekiel Webster was a more capable man 
than Daniel — which was probably the fact. 

The Ingersolls had not been long at 
Peoria before Robert had a case at Grove- 
land, a town only a few miles away, and 
a place which, like Shawneetown, has held 
its own. 

The issue was the same old classic — hogs 
had rooted up the man's garden, and then 
the hogs had been impounded. This time 
there was tragedy, for before the hogs were 
released the owner was killed. 

The people for miles had come to town 
to hear the eloquent young lawyer from 
Peoria. The taverns were crowded, and 



B Case at 
©rovelanfc 



328 Xfttle Journeys 



squire not having engaged a room, the attorney 
for the defence was put to straits to find 
a place in which to sleep. In this extrem- 
ity Squire Parker, the first citizen of the 
town, invited young Ingersoll to his house. 

Parker was a character in that neck of 
the woods — he was an "infidel," and a 
terror to all the clergy round about. And 
strange enough — or not — his wife believed 
exactly as he did, and so did their daughter 
Eva, a beautiful girl of nineteen. But 
Squire Parker got into no argument with 
his guest — their belief was the same. 
Probably we would now call the Parkers 
simply radical Unitarians. Their kinsman, 
Theodore Parker, expressed their faith, 
and they had no more use for a " personal 
devil" than he had. The courage of the 
young woman in stating her religious views 
had almost made her an outcast in the 
village, and here she was saying the same 
things in Groveland that Robert was saying 
in Peoria. She was the first woman he ever 
knew who had ideas. 

It was one o'clock before he went to bed 
that night — his head was in a whirl. It 
was a wonder he did not lose his case the 
next day, but he did not. 



IRobert Undersoil 



3 2 9 



He cleared his client and won a bride. 

In a few months Robert Ingersoll and 
Eva Parker were married. 

Never were man and woman more per- 
fectly mated than this couple. And how 
much the world owes to her sustaining 
love and unfaltering faith, we cannot 
compute; but my opinion is that if it had 
not been for Eva Parker — twice a daughter 
of the Revolution, whose ancestors fought 
side by side with the Livingstons — we 
should never have heard of Robert Inger- 
soll as the maker of an epoch. It is love 
that makes the world go round — and it is 
love that makes the orator and fearless 
thinker, no less than poet, painter, and 
musician. 

No man liveth unto himself alone: we 
demand the approval and approbation of 
another ; we write and speak for some one ; 
and our thought coming back from this 
one approved, gives courage and that bold 
determination which carries conviction 
home. Before the world believes in us 
we must believe in ourselves, and before 
we fully believe in ourselves this some one 
must believe in us. Eva Parker believed 
in Robert Ingersoll, and it was her love and 



•(Robert's 
Carriage 



33© 



Xittle Sourness 



TOpbeto b« 
bis "Mifc 



faith that made him believe in himself and 
caused him to fling reasons into the face 
of hypocrisy and shower with sarcasm and 
ridicule the savage and senseless supersti- 
tions that paraded themselves as divine. 

Wendell Phillips believed in himself be- 
cause Ann never doubted him. Without 
Ann he would not have had the courage to 
face that twenty years' course of mobs. 
If it had ever occurred to him that the mob 
was right he would have gone down in 
darkness and defeat, but with Ann such a 
suspicion was not possible. He pitted 
Ann's faith against the prejudice of 
centuries — two with God are a majority. 

It was Eva's faith that sustained Robert. 
In those first years of lecturing she always 
accompanied him, and at his lectures sat 
on the stage in the wings and gloried in his 
success. He did not need her to protect 
him from the mob, but he needed her to 
protect him from himself. It is only per- 
fect love that casteth out fear. 



VI 



33i 



THERE is a little book called, " Inger- 
soll as He Is, " which is being circu- 
lated by some earnest advocates of truth. 

The volume is a vindication, a refutation, 
and an apology. It takes up a goodly list 
of zealous calumniators and cheerful pre- 
varicators and tacks their pelts on the 
barn-door of obliquity. 

That Ingersoll won the distinction of 
being more grossly misrepresented than 
any man of his time, there is no doubt. 
This was to his advantage — he was adver- 
tised by his rabid enemies no less than by 
his loving friends. But his good friends 
who are putting out this vindication should 
cultivate faith, and know that there is a 
God, or Something, who looks after the 
lies and the liars — we need not. 

A big man should never be cheapened by 
a defence. Life is its own excuse for being, 



" lingers 
soil as 
D6 Us " 



332 



Xtttle 3ourne£8 



H 1Run for 
Safety 



and every life is its own apology. Silence 
is better than wordy refutation. People 
who want to believe the falsehoods told of 
this man, or any other, will continue to 
believe them until the crack of doom. 

Most accusations contain a certain basis 
of truth, but they may be no less libels on 
that account. One zealous advocate, in- 
tent on loving his supposed enemy, printed 
a thrilling story about Ingersoll being taken 
prisoner during the war, while taking 
refuge in a pig-pen. To this some of Bob's 
friends interposed a fierce rejoinder declar- 
ing that Bob stood like Falstaff at Gads 
Hill and fought the rogues in buckram to a 
standstill. 

Heaven forfend me from my friends — I 
can withstand mine enemies alone ! 

I am quite ready to believe that Bob, 
being attacked by an overwhelming force, 
suddenly bethought him of an engagement, 
and made a swift run for safety. The 
impeccable man who has never done a 
cowardly thing, or a mean thing, is no 
kinsman of mine! The saintly he^o who 
has not had his heels run away with his 
head, and sought safety in a friendly pig- 
pen — aye! and filled his belly with the 



IRobert Undersoil 333 

husks that the swine did eat — has dropped xfmita* 
something out of his life that he will have 
to go back for and pick up in another 
incarnation. We love men for their limi- 
tations and weaknesses, no less than their 
virtues. A fault may bring a man very 
close to us. Have we, too, not sought 
safety in pig-pens ! The people who taunt 
other people with having taken temporary 
refuge in a pig-pen are usually those who 
live in pig-pens the whole year round. 

The one time in the life of Savonarola 
when he comes nearest to us is when his 
tortured flesh wrenched from his spirit a 
recantation. And who can forget that cry 
of Calvary, "My God, my God! Why hast 
thou forsaken me!" That call for help 
coming to us across twenty centuries, 
makes the man, indeed, our elder brother. 

And let it here be stated that even Bob's 
bitterest foe never declared that the man 
was a coward by nature, nor that the busi- 
ness of his life was hiding in pig-pens. The 
incident named was exceptional and there- 
fore noteworthy; let us admit it, at least 
not worry ourselves into a passion denying 
it. Let us also stipulate the truth that 
Bob could never quite overcome the 



334 



Xtttle Sourness 



Urain 

3Brcafefaet 



temptation to take an unfair advantage of 
his opponent in an argument. He laid 
the fools by the heels and suddenly, 'gainst 
all the rules of either Robertson or 
Queensbury. 

To go after the prevaricators, and track 
them to their holes, is to make much of 
little, and lift the liars into the realm of 
equals. This story of the pig-pen I never 
heard of until Ingersoll's friends denied 
it in a book. 

Just one instance to show how trifles light 
as air are to the zealous confirmation strong 
as holy writ. In April, 1894, Ingersoll 
lectured at Utica, New York. The follow- 
ing Sunday a local clergyman denounced 
the lecturer as a sensualist, a gourmand — 
one totally indifferent to decency and the 
feelings and rights of others. Then the 
preacher said, "At breakfast in this city 
last Thursday, Ingersoll ordered everything 
on the bill of fare, and then insulted and 
roundly abused the waiter-girl because she 
did not bring things that were not in the 
hotel.' ' 

I happened to be present at that meal. 
It was an " early train breakfast, " and the 
bill of fare for the day had not been printed. 



IRobert Undersell 



335 



The girl came in, and standing at the colo- 
nel's elbow, in genuine waiter-girl style, 
mumbled this : " Ham and eggs, mutton 
chops, beefsteak, breakfast bacon, codfish 
balls, and buckwheat cakes. " 

And Bob solemnly said : " Ham and eggs, 
mutton chops, beefsteak, breakfast bacon, 
codfish balls, and buckwheat cakes." 

In amazement the girl gasped, " What? " 
And then Bob went over it backward: 
" Buckwheat cakes, codfish balls, breakfast 
bacon, beefsteak, mutton chops, and ham 
and eggs. " 

This memory test raised a laugh that sent 
a shout of mirth all through the room, in 
which even the girl joined. 

" Have n't you anything else, my dear," 
asked the great man in a sort of dis- 
appointed way. 

"I think we have tripe and pig's feet," 
said the girl. 

"Bring a bushel," said Bob, "and say, 
tell the cook I 'd like a dish of peacock 
tongues on the side." The infinite good 
nature of it all caused another laugh from 
everybody. 

The girl brought everything ordered 
excepting the peacock tongues, and this 



Memory 
Ueat 



33 6 



Xittle Sourness 



Reeling of 
Iplenituoe 



order supplied the lecturer and his party 
of four. The waitress found a dollar bill 
under Bob's plate, and the cook who stood 
in the kitchen door and waved a big spoon, 
and called, " Good bye, Bob!" got another 
dollar for himself. 

Ingersoll carried mirth, and joy, and 
good cheer, and radiated a feeling of 
plenitude wherever he went. He was a 
royal liver and a royal spender. " If I had 
but a dollar, " he used to say, " I 'd spend 
it as though it were a dry leaf, and I were 
the owner of an unbounded forest." He 
maintained a pension list of thirty persons 
or more for a decade, spent upwards of 
forty thousand dollars a year, and while 
the fortune he left for his wife and children 
was not large, as men count things on 
'Change, yet it is ample for their ease and 
comfort. 

His family always called him " Robert" 
with an almost idolatrous flavour of tender 
love in the word. But to the world who 
hated him and the world who loved him, 
he was just plain "Bob. " To trainmen, 
hack drivers, and the great singers, poets, 
and players, he was "Bob." "Dignity 
is the mask behind which we hide our 



IRobert Anderson 337 



names 



ignorance. " When half a world calls fUcfc* 
a man by a nickname, it is a patent 
to nobility — small men are never so 
honoured. 

" Good-bye, Bob," called the white 
aproned cook as he stood in the kitchen 
door and waved his big spoon. 

" Good-bye, brother, and mind you get 
those peacock tongues by the time I get 
back," answered Bob. 



338 



VII 



Ingersoirs 
apologia 



AS to Ingersoll's mental evolution we 
cannot do better than to let him 
tell the story himself: 

Like the most of us, I was raised among 
people who knew — who were certain. They 
did not reason or investigate. They had no 
doubts. They knew they had the truth. In 
their creed there was no guess — no perhaps. 
They had a revelation from God. They 
knew that God commenced to create one 
Monday morning and worked until Saturday 
night, four thousand and four years before 
Christ. They knew that in the eternity — 
back of that morning, he had done nothing. 
They knew that it took him six days to make 
the earth — all plants, all animals, all life, 
and all the globes that wheel in space. They 
knew exactly what he did each day and when 
he rested. They knew the origin, the cause 
of evil, of all crime, of all disease, and death. 

They not only knew the beginning, but 



IRobert Undersoil 



339 



they knew the end. They knew that life had 
one path and one road. They knew that the 
path, grass-grown and narrow, filled with 
thorns and nettles, infested with vipers, wet 
with tears, stained by bleeding feet, led to 
heaven, and that the road, broad and smooth, 
bordered with fruits and flowers, filled with 
laughter and song, and all happiness of human 
love, led straight to hell. They knew that 
God was doing his best to make you take the 
path and that the devil used every art to keep 
you in the road. 

They knew that there was a perpetual 
battle waged between the great powers of good 
and evil for the possession of human souls. 
They knew that many centuries ago God had 
left his throne and had been born a babe into 
this poor world — that he had suffered death 
for the sake of man — for the sake of saving a 
few. They also knew that the human heart 
was utterly depraved, so that man by nature 
was in love with wrong and hated God with 
all his might. 

At the same time they knew that God 
created man in his own image and was per- 
fectly satisfied with his work. They also 
knew that he had been thwarted by the devil 
— who with wiles and lies had deceived the 
first of human kind. They knew that in 
consequence of that, God cursed the man and 



Ungersoll's 
apologia 



34o 



Xittle Journeys 



"ffngersoll's 
Bpologta 



woman; the man with toil, the woman with 
slavery and pain, and both with death; and 
that he cursed the earth itself with briars and 
thorns, brambles and thistles. All these 
blessed things they knew. They knew too all 
that God had done to purify and elevate the 
race. They knew all about the Flood — knew 
that God, with the exception of eight, drowned 
all his children — the old and young — the 
bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe — the 
young man and the merry maiden — the lov- 
ing mother and the laughing child — because 
his mercy endureth forever. They knew too, 
that he drowned the beasts and birds — every 
thing that walked or crawled or flew — because 
his loving kindness is over all his works. They 
knew that God, for the purpose of civilising 
his children, had devoured some with earth- 
quakes, destroyed some with storms of fire, 
killed some with his lightnings, millions with 
famine, with pestilence, and sacrificed count- 
less thousands upon the fields of war. They 
knew that it was necessary to believe these 
things and to love God. They knew that 
there could be no salvation except by faith, 
and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. 
All who doubted or denied would be lost. 
To live a moral and honest life — to keep your 
contracts, to take care of wife and child — to 
make a happy home — to be a good citizen, a 



IRobert Undersoil 



341 



patriot, a just and thoughtful man, was 
simply a respectable way of going to hell. 

God did not reward men for being honest, 
generous, and brave, but for the act of faith — 
without faith, all the so-called virtues were 
sins, and the men who practised these virtues, 
without faith, deserved to suffer eternal pain. 

All of these comforting and reasonable 
things were taught by the ministers in their 
pulpits — by teachers in Sunday schools and 
by parents at home. The children were 
victims. They were assaulted in the cradle 
— in their mother's arms. Then, the school- 
master carried on the war against their 
natural sense, and all the books they read 
were filled with the same impossible truths. 
The poor children were helpless. The at- 
mosphere they breathed was filled with lies — 
lies that mingled with their blood. 

In those days ministers depended on re- 
vivals to save souls and reform the world. 

In the winter, navigation having closed, 
business was mostly suspended. There were 
no railways and the only means of com- 
munication were waggons and boats. Gener- 
ally the roads were so bad that the waggons 
were laid up with the boats. There were no 
operas, no theatres, no amusements except 
parties and balls. The parties were regarded 
as worldly and the balls as wicked. For real 



Ungersoll's 

Hpologia 



342 



Xittle Journeys 



UngcveolVe 
apologia 



and virtuous enjoyment the good people 
depended on revivals. 

The sermons were mostly about the pains 
and agonies of hell, the joys and ecstasies of 
heaven, salvation by faith, and the efficacy 
of the atonement. The little churches, in 
which the services were held, were generally 
small, badly ventilated, and exceedingly 
warm. The emotional sermons, the sad 
singing, the hysterical amens, the hope of 
heaven, the fear of hell, caused many to lose 
the little sense they had. They became sub- 
stantially insane. In this condition they 
nocked to the "mourners' bench" — asked 
for the prayers of the faithful — had strange 
feelings, prayed and wept, and thought they 
had been "born again." Then they would 
tell their experience — how wicked they had 
been — how evil had been their thoughts, their 
desires, and how good they had suddenly 
become. 

They used to tell the story of an old woman 
who, in telling her experience, said: — "Before 
I was converted, before I gave my heart to 
God, I used to lie and steal, but now, thanks 
to the grace and blood of Jesus Christ, I have 
quit 'em both, in a great measure." 

Of course all the people were not exactly 
of one mind. There were some scoffers, and 
now and then, some man had sense enough 



IRobert Ungersoli 



343 



to laugh at the threats of priests and make a 
jest of hell. Some would tell of unbelievers 
who had lived and died in peace. 

When I was a boy I heard them tell of an 
old farmer in Vermont. He was dying. The 
minister was at his bedside — asked him if he 
was a Christian — if he was prepared to die. 
The old man answered that he had made no 
preparation, that he was not a Christian — 
that he had never done anything but work. 
The preacher said that he could give him no 
hope unless he had faith in Christ, and that if 
he had no faith his soul would certainly be 
lost. 

The old man was not frightened. He was 
perfectly calm. In a weak and broken voice 
he said: "Mr. Preacher, I suppose you noticed 
my farm. My wife and I came here more than 
fifty years ago. We were just married. It 
was a forest then and the land was covered 
with stones. I cut down the trees, burned the 
logs, picked up the stones, and laid the walls. 
My wife spun and wove and worked every 
moment. We raised and educated our child- 
ren — denied ourselves. During all these years 
my wife never had a good dress, or a decent 
bonnet. I never had a good suit of clothes. 
We lived on the plainest food. Our hands, 
our bodies, are deformed by toil. We never 
had a vacation. We loved each other and the 



fngersoII'B 

Bpologia 



344 



Xtttle Journeys 



IFngersoll's 
Bpologla 



children. That is the only luxury we ever 
had. Now, I am about to die, and you ask me 
if I am prepared. Mr. Preacher, I have no 
fear of the future, no terror of any other 
world. There may be such a place as hell — 
but if there is, you never can make me believe 
that it 's any worse than old Vermont." 

So they told of a man who compared him- 
self with his dog. "My dog," he said, "just 
barks and plays — has all he wants to eat. He 
never works — has no trouble about business. 
In a little while he dies, and that is all. I work 
with all my strength. I have no time to 
play. I have trouble every day. In a little 
while I will die, and then I go to hell. I 
wish that I had been a dog." 

Well, while the cold weather lasted, while 
the snows fell, the revival went on, but when 
the winter was over, when the steamboat's 
whistle was heard, when business started 
again, most of the converts "backslid" and 
fell again into their old ways. But the next 
winter they were on hand, ready to be "born 
again." They formed a kind of stock com- 
pany, playing the same parts every winter and 
backsliding every spring. 

The ministers who preached at these 
revivals were in earnest. They were zealous 
and sincere. They were not philosophers. To 
them science was the name of a vague dread — 



IRobert Undersoil 



345 



a dangerous enemy. They did not know 
much, but they believed a great deal. To 
them hell was a burning reality — they could 
see the smoke and flames. The devil was no 
myth. He was an actual person, a rival of 
God, an enemy of mankind. They thought 
that the important business of this life was 
to save your soul — that all should resist and 
scorn the pleasures of sense, and keep their 
eyes steadily fixed on the golden gate of the 
New Jerusalem. They were unbalanced, 
emotional, hysterical, bigoted, hateful, loving, 
and insane. They really believed the Bible 
to be the actual word of God — a book without 
mistake or contradiction. They called its 
cruelties justice — its absurdities, mysteries — 
its miracles, facts, and the idiotic passages 
were regarded as profoundly spiritual. They 
dwelt on the pangs, the regrets, the infinite 
agonies of the lost, and showed how easily 
they could be avoided, and how cheaply 
heaven could be obtained. They told their 
hearers to believe, to have faith, to give their 
hearts to God, their sins to Christ, who would 
bear their burdens and make their souls as 
white as snow. 

All this the ministers really believed. They 
were absolutely certain. In their minds the 
devil had tried in vain to sow the seeds of 
doubt. 



UngcteolVs 

Bpologta 



346 



Xittle Journeys 



tngcveoive I heard hundreds of these evangelical ser- 
mons — heard hundreds of the most fearful and 
vivid descriptions of the tortures inflicted in 
hell, of the horrible state of the lost. I sup- 
posed that what I heard was true and yet I 
did not believe it. I said, "It is," and then I 
thought, " It cannot be. " 

From my childhood I had heard read, and 
read,theBible. Morning andevening the sacred 
volume was opened and prayers were said. 
The Bible was my first history, the Jews were 
the first people, and the events narrated by 
Moses and the other inspired writers and 
those predicted by prophets were the all 
important things. In other books were found 
the thoughts and dreams of men, but in the 
Bible were the sacred truths of God. 

Yet in spite of my surroundings, of my 
education, I had no love for God. He was so 
saving of mercy, so extravagant in murder, 
so anxious to kill, so ready to assassinate, that 
I hated him with all my heart. At his com- 
mand, babes were butchered, women violated, 
and the white hair of trembling age stained 
with blood. This God visited the people 
with pestilence — filled the houses and covered 
the streets with the dying and the dead — saw 
babes starving on the empty breasts of pallid 
mothers, heard the sobs, saw the tears, the 
sunken cheeks, the sightless eyes, the new- 



IRobert fngetsoll 



347 



made graves, and remained as pitiless as the 
pestilence. This God withheld the rain — 
caused the famine — saw the fierce eyes of 
hunger — the wasted forms, the white lips, saw 
mothers eating babes, and remained fero- 
cious as famine. 

It seems to me impossible for a civilised 
man to love or worship or respect the God of 
the Old Testament. A really civilised man, 
a really civilised woman, must hold such a 
God in abhorrence and contempt. 

But in the old days the good people justi- 
fied Jehovah in his treatment of the heathen. 
The wretches who were murdered were ido- 
laters and therefore unfit to live. 

According to the Bible, God never revealed 
himself to these people, and he knew that 
without a revelation they could not know that 
he was the true God. Whose fault was it 
then that they were heathen? 

The Christians said that God had the right 
to destroy them because he created them. 
What did he create them for? He knew 
when he made them that they would be food 
for the sword. He knew that he would have 
the pleasure of seeing them murdered. 

As a last answer, as a final excuse, the 
worshippers of Jehovah said that all these 
horrible things happened under the "old dis- 
pensation" of unyielding law, and absolute 



IngcveolVe 

Bpologfa 



348 



Xittle 5ourneps 



Undersoil's 

Bpologia 



justice, but that now, under the "new dispen- 
sation, " all had been changed — the sword 
of justice had been sheathed and love en- 
throned. In the Old Testament, they said, 
God is the judge — but in the New, Christ is 
the merciful. As a matter of fact, the New 
Testament is infinitely worse than the Old. 
In the Old there is no threat of eternal pain. 
Jehovah had no eternal prison — no everlasting 
fire. His hatred ended at the grave. His 
revenge was satisfied when his enemy was 
dead. 

In the New Testament, death is not the end, 
but the beginning of punishment that has no 
end. In the New Testament the malice of 
God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge 
eternal. 

The orthodox God, when clothed in human 
flesh, told His disciples not to resist evil, to love 
their enemies, and when smitten on one cheek 
to turn the other ; and yet we are told that this 
same God, with the same loving lips, uttered 
these heartless, these fiendish words: " Depart, 
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for 
the devil and his angels. " 

These are the words of "eternal love. " 

No human being has imagination enough 
to conceive of this infinite horror. 

All that the human race has suffered in war 
and want, in pestilence and famine, in fire and 



IRobert Undersoil 



349 



flood — all the pangs and pains of every dis- 
ease and every death — all this is nothing 
compared with the agonies to be endured by 
one lost soul. 

This is the consolation of the Christian 
religion. This is the justice of God — the 
mercy of Christ. 

This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, 
made me the implacable enemy of Christian- 
ity. The truth is that this belief in eternal 
pain has been the real persecutor. It founded 
the Inquisition, forged the chains, and 
furnished the fagots. It has darkened the 
lives of many millions. It made the cradle 
as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations 
and shed the blood of countless thousands. 
It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest, and the 
best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove 
mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends, 
and banished reason from the brain. 

Like a venomous serpent it crawls and 
coils and hisses in every orthodox creed. 

It makes man an eternal victim and God 
an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite 
horror. Every church in which it is taught 
is a public curse. Every preacher who 
teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below 
this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. 
It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and 
revenge. 



IFngersoll's 

Bpologta 



35° 



Xittle Journeys 



ffngersoll's 
Bpologfa 



Nothing could add to the horror of hell, 
except the presence of its Creator, God. 

While I have life, as long as I draw breath, 
I shall deny with all my strength, and hate 
with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie. 

Nothing gives me greater joy than to know 
that this belief in eternal pain is growing 
weaker every day — that thousands of min- 
isters are ashamed of it. It gives me joy 
to know that Christians are becoming merci- 
ful, so merciful that the fires of hell are 
burning low — flickering, choked with ashes, 
destined in a few years to die out forever. 

For centuries Christendom was a mad- 
house. Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, 
monks, and heretics were all insane. 

Only a few — four or five in a century — were 
sound in heart and brain. Only a few, in 
spite of the roar and din, in spite of the savage 
cries, heard reason's voice. Only a few in 
the wild rage of ignorance, fear, and zeal pre- 
served the perfect calm that wisdom gives. 
We have advanced. In a few years the 
Christians will become humane and sensible 
enough to deny the dogma that fills the end- 
less years with pain. 



VIII 



THE world is getting better. We are 
gradually growing honest, and men 
everywhere, even in the pulpit, are ac- 
knowledging they do not know all about 
things. There was little hope for the race 
so long as an individual was disgraced if 
he did not pretend to believe a thing at 
which his reason revolted. We are simpli- 
fying life — simplifying truth. The man 
who serves his fellowmen best is he who 
simplifies. The learned man used to be 
the one who muddled things, who scram- 
bled thought, who took reason away, and 
instead, thrust upon us faith, with a 
threat of punishment if we did not accept 
it, and an offer of reward if we did. 

We have now discovered that the 
so-called learned man had no authority, 
either for his threat of punishment or his 
offer of reward. Hypocrisy will not now 



Mission 



35 2 



Xittle Sourness 



Ungereoll's 

flIMssfon 



pass current, and sincerity, frozen stiff 
with fright, is not legal tender for truth. 
In the frank acknowledgment of ignorance 
there is much promise. The man who 
does not know, and is not afraid to say so, 
is in the line of evolution. But for the 
head that is packed with falsehood, and 
the heart that is faint with fear, there is 
no hope. That head must be unloaded 
of its lumber, and the heart given courage 
before the march of progress can begin. 

Now let us be frank, and let us be 
honest, just for a few moments. Let 
us acknowledge that this revolution in 
thought that has occurred during the 
last twenty-five years was brought about 
mainly by one individual. The world 
was ripe for this man's utterance, other- 
wise he would not have gotten the speaker's 
eye. A hundred years before we w r ould 
have snuffed him out in contumely and 
disgrace. But men listened to him, and 
paid high for the privilege. And those 
who hated this man and feared him most 
went, too, to listen, so as to answer him 
and thereby keep the planet from swing- 
ing out of its orbit and sweeping on to 
destruction. 



IRobert Ungersoll 



353 



.Wherever this man spoke, in towns 
and cities or country, for weeks the air 
was heavy with the smoke of rhetoric, 
and reasons, soggy and solid, and fuzzy 
logic and muddy proof were dragged like 
siege guns to the defence. 

They dared the man to come back and 
fight it out. The clouds were charged with 
challenges, and the prophecy was made 
and made again that never in the same 
place could this man go back and get a 
second hearing. Yet he did go back 
year after year, and crowds hung upon 
his utterances and laughed with him at 
the scarecrow that had once filled their 
day-dreams, made the nights hideous, and 
the future black with terror. Through 
his influence the tears of pity put out the 
fires of hell; and he literally laughed the 
devil out of court. This man, more than 
any other man of his century, made the 
clergy free. He raised the standard of 
intelligence in both pew and pulpit, and 
the preachers who denounced him most, 
often were, and are, the most benefited 
by his work. 

This man was Robert G. Ingersoll. 

On the urn that encloses his ashes 



Ungersoirs 
itttsslon 



354 



Xittle Sourness 



Undersoil's 
flMssion 



should be these words* Liberator of AT en. 
When he gave his lecture on "The 
Gods" at Cooper Union, New York City, 
in 1872, he fired a shot heard round 
the world. It was the boldest, strongest, 
and most vivid utterance of the cen- 
tury. 

At once it was recognised that the 
thinking world had to deal with a man of 
power. , Efforts were made in dozens of 
places to bring statute law to bear upon 
him, and the State of Delaware held her 
whipping-post in readiness for his benefit; 
but blasphemy enactments and laws for 
the protection of the unknown were in- 
operative in his gracious presence. Inger- 
soll was a hard hitter, but the splendid 
good-nature of the man, his freedom from 
all personal malice, and his unsullied 
character saved him, in those early days, 
from the violence that surely would have 
overtaken a smaller person. 

The people who now seek to disparage 
the name and fame of Ingersoll dwell on 
the things he was not, and give small 
credit for that which he was. 

They demand infinity and perfection, 
not quite willing yet to acknowledge that 



Robert f ngersoli 



355 



perfection has never been incorporated in a 
single soul. 

Let us acknowledge freely that Inger- 
soll was not a pioneer in science. Let 
us admit, for argument's sake, that Rous- 
seau, Voltaire, Paine, and Renan voiced 
every argument that he put forth. Let 
us grant that he was often the pleader, and 
that the lawyer habit of painting his own 
side large never quite forsook him, and 
that he was swayed more by his feelings 
than by his intellect. Let us further 
admit that in his own individual case there 
was small evolution, and that for thirty 
years he threshed the same straw. And, 
these things being said and admitted, 
nothing more in truth can be said against 
the man. 

But these points are neither to his dis- 
credit nor disgrace. On them you cannot 
construct an indictment — they mark his 
limitations, that is all. 

Ingersoll gave superstition such a jolt 
that the consensus of intelligence has 
counted it out. Ingersoll did not destroy 
the good — all that is vital and excellent 
and worthy in religion we have yet, and 
in such measure as it never existed before. 



Ingersoll's 
fliission 



356 



Xittle Journeys 



fngersoIPs 

mission 



In every so-called "Orthodox" pulpit 
you can now hear sermons calling upon 
men to manifest their religion in their 
work; to show their love for God in their 
attitude toward men ; to gain the kingdom 
of heaven by having the kingdom of 
heaven in their own hearts. 

Ingersoll pleaded for the criminal, the 
weak, the defenceless and the depraved. 
Our treatment toward all these has changed 
marvellously within a decade. When we 
ceased to believe that God was going to 
damn folks, we left off damning them our- 
selves. We think better now of God 
and we think better of men and women. 
Who dares now talk about the " hopelessly 
lost"? 

You cannot afford to indict a man 
who practised every so-called Christian 
virtue, simply because there was a flaw 
or two in his " belief" — the world has 
gotten beyond that. Everybody now ad- 
mits that Ingersoll was quite as good a 
man as those who denounced him most. 
His life was full of kind deeds and generous 
acts, and his daily walk was quite as 
blameless as the life of the average priest 
and preacher. 



IRobert flngersoll 



357 



Those who seek to cry Ingersoll down 
reveal either density or malice. He did 
a great and necessary work, and did it 
so thoroughly and w r ell that it will never 
have to be done again. His mission was to 
liberalise and to Christianise every church 
in Christendom; and no denomination, 
be its creed ever so ossified, stands now 
where it stood before Ingersoll began his 
crusade. He shamed men into sanity. 

Ingersoll uttered in clarion tones what 
thousands of men and women believed, 
but dared not voice. He was the spokes- 
man for many of the best thinkers of 
his time. He abolished fear, gave courage 
in place of cringing doubt, and lived what 
he believed was truth. His was a brave, 
cheerful, and kindly life. He was loved 
most by those who knew him best, for in 
his nature there was neither duplicity nor 
concealment. He had nothing to hide. 
We know and acknowledge the man's 
limitations, yet we realise his worth: 
his influence in the cause of simplicity 
and honesty has been priceless. 

The dust of conflict has not yet settled; 
prejudice still is in the air, but time, the 
great adjuster, will give Ingersoll his due. 



Undersoil's 
Mission 



358 



Xtttle Sourness 



UngeteolVs 
/Mission 



The history of America's thought evolu- 
tion can never be written and the name 
of Ingersoll left out. In his own splendid 
personality he had no rivals, no compe- 
titors. He stands alone, and no name in 
liberal thought can ever eclipse his. He 
prepared the way for the thinkers and 
the doers who shall come after, and in 
insight surpass him, reaching spiritual 
heights which he, perhaps, could never 
attain. This earth is a better place, and 
life and liberty are safer, because Robert 
G. Ingersoll lived. 

The last words of Ingersoll were, by a 
strange coincidence, the dying words of 
his brother Ebon: "I am better!" — 
words of hope, words of assurance to the 
woman he loved. 

Sane to the last! And let us, too, hope 
that these dying words are those of all 
the countless dead. 



PATRICK HENRY 



359 



361 



It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentle- 
men may cry, Peace, peace; but there is no peace. 
The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps 
from the north will bring to our ears the clash of 
resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the 
field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that 
gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life 
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at 
the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty 
God! — I know not what course others may take ; but 
as for me, give me liberty or give me death! 



liberty 



363 



SARAH SYME was a blooming widow, 
thirty-two in June — such widows 
are never over thirty-two — and managed 
her estate of a thousand acres in Hanover 
County, Virginia, with business ability. 
That such a widow, and thirty-two, should 
remain a widow in a pioneer country was 
out of the question. 

She had suitors. Their horses were tied 
to the pickets all day long. 

One of these suitors has described the 
widow for us. He says she was "lively 
in disposition," and he also uses the words 
"buxom" and "portly." I do not like 
these expressions — they suggest too much, 
so I will none of them. I would rather 
refer to her as lissome and willowy, and 
tell how her sorrow for the dead wrapped 
her round with weeds and becoming sable 
— but in the interests of truth I dare not. 



U JBlooms 



364 



Xittle Sourness 



Ube Dour 
of ff ate 



Some of her suitors were widowers — 
ancient of days, fatandFalstaffian. Others 
were lean and lachrymose, with large 
families, fortunes impaired, and futures 
mostly behind. Then there were gay 
fox-hunting holluschickies, without serious 
intent and minus both future and past 
worth mentioning, who called and sat on 
the front porch because they thought 
their presence would be pleasing and re- 
lieve the tedium of widowhood. 

Then there was a young Scotch school- 
master, educated, temperate, and gentle- 
manly, who came to instruct the two 
children of the widow in long division and 
who blushed to the crown of his red head 
when the widow invited him to tea. 

Have a care, Widow Syme! Destiny 
has use for you with your lively ways and 
portly form. You are to make history, 
help mould a political policy, fan the flames 
of war, and through motherhood make 
yourself immortal. Choose your casket 
wisely, O Widow Syme! It is the hour of 
fate! 



3^4 



Xittle 3ourne£S 



Zbe fjour 
of Jf ate 



So widowers — 

and Others 

th large 
futures 
Then there were gay 
1 1 ting holluschie k ri ous 

.nd minus past 

worth mentioning, who called t on 

the front porch because they tho- 
their presence would be pleasing and re- 
lieve the tedium of widowhood. 

Then the; img Scotch sch 



Patrick Henry f 6 " 

J two 

After the painting by J. B. Longacre 









Have a ( Destiny 

has use for you with your lively ways and 

portly form. You are to make history, 

help mould a political policy, fan the flames 

and through mother 

Choo- 

'idow Syme! It is the hour of 



II 



3^5 



THE widow was a queen bee and so had 
a perfect right to choose her mate. 
The Scotchman proved to be it. He was 
only twenty-five, they say, but he was man 
enough when standing before the registrar 
to make it thirty. When he put his red 
head inside the church door some one 
cried, ''Genius!" And so they were mar- 
ried and lived happily ever after. And 
the name of the Scotchman was John 
Henry — I 11 not deceive you, sweet ! 

John and Sarah were well suited to each 
other. John was exact, industrious, prac- 
tical. The wife had a lively sense of 
humour, was entertaining and intelligent. 
Under the management of the canny Scot 
the estate took on a look of prosperity. 
The man was a model citizen — honours 
travelled his way : he became colonel of 
the local militia, county surveyor, and 



5obn an& 
Sacab 



3M 



SLittle Sourness 



finally magistrate. Babies arrived as rap- 
idly as nature would allow and with the 
regularity of an electric clock — although, of 
course, there was not any electricity then. 
The second child was named Patrick, 
Jr., in honour and in deference to a brother 
of the happy father — a clergyman of the 
Established Church. Patrick Henry al- 
ways subscribed himself "P. Henry, Jr.," 
and whether he was ever aware that there 
was only one Patrick Henry is a question. 

There were nine altogether in the brood 
— eight of them good, honest, barn-yard 
fowls. 

And one was an eagle. 

Why this was so no one knew — the 
mother did not know and the father could 
not guess. All of them were born under 
about the same conditions, all received 
about the same training — or lack of it. 

However, no one at first suspected that 
the eagle was an eagle — over a score of 
years were to pass before he was suddenly 
to spread out strong, sinewy wings and 
soar to the ether. 

Patrick Henry caused his parents more 
trouble and anxiety than all the rest of the 
family combined. Patrick and culture 



Patrick fc>enrs 



3 6 7 



had nothing in common. As a youngster 
he roamed the woods, bare of foot and bare 
of head, his only garments a shirt and 
trousers held in place by a single gallus. 
He was indolent, dreamy, procrastinating, 
frolicsome, with a beautiful aversion to 
books, and a fondness for fishing that was 
carried to the limit. The boy's mother 
did not worry very much about the young- 
ster, but the father had spells when he 
took the matter to the Lord in prayer, 
and afterward, growing impatient of an 
answer, fell to and used the tawse without 
mercy. John Henry probably did this as 
much to relieve his own feelings as for 
the good of the boy, but doubtless he did 
not reason quite that far. 

Patrick nursed his black and blue spots 
and fell back on his flute for solace. 

After one such seance, when he was 
twelve years of age, he disappeared with 
a coloured boy about his own age. They 
took a shotgun, fishing tackle, and a vio- 
lin. They were gone three weeks, during 
which time Patrick had not been out of 
his clothes, nor once washed his face. 
They had slept out under the sky by 
camp-fires. The smell of smoke was surely 



Patrick's 
3Bosboot> 



3 68 



Xittle Journeps 



Patrick 

leaves 
Scbool 



on his garments, and his parents were put 
to their wits to distinguish between the 
bond and the free. 

Had Patrick been an only child he 
would have driven his mother into hysteria 
and his father to the flowing bowl (I trust 
I use the right expression). If not this, 
then it would have been because the fond 
parents had found peace by transforming 
their son into a Little Lord Fauntleroy. 
Nature shows great wisdom in providing 
companions for children — they educate 
each other, and so divide the time of the 
mother that attention to the individual 
is limited to the actual needs. Too 
much interference with children is a grave 
mistake. 

Patrick Henry quit school at fifteen 
with a love for arithmetic — it was such a 
fine puzzle — and an equal regard for his- 
tory — history was a lot of good stories. 
For two years he rode wild horses, tramped 
the woods with rod and gun, and played 
the violin at country dances. 

Another spasm of fear, chagrin, and 
discouragement sweeping over the father 
on account of the indifference and profli- 
gacy of his son, he decided to try the youth 



Patrick fbenrs 



369 



in trade, and if this failed, to let him go 
to the devil. So a stock of general goods 
was purchased and Patrick and William, 
the elder brother, were shoved off upon 
the uncertain sea of commerce. 

The result was just what might have 
been expected. The store was a loafing 
place for all the ne'er-do-wells in the 
vicinity. Patrick trusted everybody — 
those who could not get trusted elsewhere 
patronised Patrick. 

Things grew worse. In a year, when 
just eighteen years old, P. Henry, Jr., got 
married — married a rollicking country lass, 
as foolish as himself — done in bravado, 
going home from a dance, calling a minister 
out on his porch, in a crazy quilt, to per- 
form the ceremony. 

John Henry would have applied the 
birch to this hare-brained bridegroom, 
and the father of the girl would have stung 
her pink and white anatomy, but Patrick 
coolly explained that the matter could 
not be undone — they were duly married 
for better or for worse, and so the less 
fuss the better. Patrick loved his Doxey, 
and the Doxey loved her Patrick, and 
together they made as precious a pair of 



2>one in 
JBtava&o 



37o 



Xtttle Journeys 



Seeking 
BMnission 
to tbe 3Bar 



beggars as ever played gypsy music at a 
country fair. 

Most of the time they were at the home 
of the bride's parents — not by invitation — 
but they were there. The place was a 
wayside tavern. The girl made herself 
useful in the kitchen, and Patrick wel- 
comed the traveller and tended bar. 

So things drifted, until Patrick was twen- 
ty-four, when one fine day he appeared 
on the streets of Williamsburg. He 
had come in on horseback, and his boots, 
clothing, hair, and complexion formed a 
chromatic ensemble the colour of Hanover 
County clay. The account comes from 
his old-time comrade, Thomas Jefferson, 
who was at Williamsburg attending college. 

"I 've come up here to be admitted to 
the bar," gravely said P. Henry to T. 
Jefferson. 

"But you are a barkeeper now, I hear." 

"Yes," said Patrick, "but that's the 
other kind. You see, I 've been study- 
ing law, and I want to be admitted to 
practice." 

It took several minutes for the man who 
was to write the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence to get it through his head that the 



Patrick Ibenrs 



371 



matter was not a joke. Then he con- 
ducted the lean, lank, rawboned rustic 
into the presence of the judges. There 
were four of these men, Wythe, Pendleton, 
Peyton, and John Randolph. These men 
were all to be colleagues of the bumpkin 
at the First Continental Congress at 
Philadelphia, but that lay in the misty 
future. 

They looked at the candidate in sur- 
prise; two of them laughed and two looked 
needlessly solemn. However, after some 
little parley, they consented to examine 
the clown as to his fitness to practise law. 

In answer to the first question, as to how 
long he had studied, his reply was, " About 
six weeks.' ' 

One biographer says six months, and 
still another, with anxious intent to prove 
the excellence of his man, says six years. 

We had better take Jefferson's word — 
" Patrick Henry's reply was six weeks." 
As much as to say : " What difference is it 
about how long I have studied ? You are 
here to find out how much I know. There 
are men who can get more in six weeks 
than others can in six years — I may be 
one of these." 



IBelng put 

"Cbrougb 



372 



Xittle Sourness 



U 've <Sot 
At!" 



The easy indifference of the fellow was 
sublime. But he did know a little law, 
and he also knew a deal of history. The 
main thing against him was his unkempt 
appearance. After some hesitation the 
judges gave the required certificate, with 
a little lecture on the side concerning the 
beauties of etiquette and right attire as 
an adjunct to excellence in the learned 
professions. Young Mr. Jefferson did not 
wait to witness the examination of his 
friend — it was too painful, and besides he 
did not wish to be around so as to get any 
of the blame when the prayer for admission 
was denied. 

So Patrick had to find Thomas. " I Ve 
got it!" said Patrick, and smiled grimly 
as he tapped his breast pocket where the 
certificate was safely stowed. 

Then he mounted his lean dun horse 
and rode away, disappearing into the 
forest. 



Ill 



373 



AS a pedagogic policy, the training that 
Patrick Henry received would be 
rank ruin. Educational systems are de- 
signed for average intellects, but, as if to 
show us the littleness of our little schemes, 
destiny seems to give her first prizes to 
those who have evaded all rules and ignored 
every axiom. Rules and regulations are 
for average men — and so are average 
prizes. 

Speak it softly : There are several ways 
of getting an education. Patrick Henry 
got his in the woods, following winding 
streams or lying at night under the stars ; 
by mastering horses and wild animals; by 
listening to the wrangling of lawyers at 
country lawsuits, and the endless talk of 
planters who sat long hours at the tavern, 
willingly leaving the labours of the field to 
the sons of Ham. 



Patrick's 
E&ucation 



374 



Xxttle Sourness 



an& lintels 
lectual 



Thus, at twenty-four, Patrick Henry 
had first of all a physical constitution like 
watch-spring steel — he had no nerves — 
fatigue was unknown to him — he was not 
aware that he had a stomach. His intel- 
lectual endowment lay in his close intimacy 
with nature — he knew her and was so a 
part of her that he never thought of her, 
any more than the fishes think of the sea. 
The continual dwelling on a subject proves 
our ignorance of it — we discuss only that 
for which we are reaching out. 

Then, Patrick Henry knew men — he 
knew the workers, the toilers, the young, 
the old, the learned and the ignorant. 
He had mingled with mankind from 
behind the counter, the tavern bar, in 
court and school, and in church — by the 
roadside, at horse-races, camp-meetings, 
dances, and social gatherings. He was 
light of foot, ready of tongue, and with 
no thought as to respectability, and no 
doubts and fears regarding the bread and 
butter question. He had no pride, save 
possibly a pride in the fact that he had 
none. He played checkers, worked out 
mathematical problems in his mind to 
astonish the loafers, related history to 



Patrick foenrs 



375 



instruct them — and get it straight in his 
own mind — and told them stories to make 
them laugh. It is a great misfortune to 
associate only with cultured people. " God 
loves the common people," said Lincoln, 
" otherwise He would not have made so 
many of them. ' ' Patrick Henry knew them 
and is not this an education — to know life ? 
He knew he could move men; that he 
could mould their thoughts ; that he could 
convince them and bring them over to 
his own way of thinking. He had done 
it by the hour. In the continual rural 
litigations he had watched lawyers make 
their appeal to the jury; he had sat on 
these juries, and he knew he could do the 
trick better. Therefore, he wanted to 
become a lawyer. 

The practice of law to him was to con- 
vince, befog, or divert the jury; he could 
do it, and so he applied for permission to 
practise law. 

He was successful from the first. His 
clownish ways pleased the judge, jury, 
and spectators. His ready tongue and in- 
finite good humour made him a favourite. 
There may not be much law in justice 
of the peace proceedings, but there is a 



practice of 
law 



376 



Xtttle Sourness 



Discover? 

of 
fhimsclf 



certain rude equity which answers the 
purpose, possibly, better. And surely it 
is good practice for the fledgelings: the 
best way to learn law is to practise it. 
And the successful practice of the law lies 
almost as much in evading the law as in 
complying with it — I suppose we should 
say that softly, too. In support of the 
last proposition, let me say that we are 
dealing with P. Henry, Jr., of Virginia, 
arch-rebel, and a defier of law and pre- 
cedent. Had he reverenced law as law, 
his name would have been writ in water. 
The reputation of the man hinges on the 
fact that he defied authority. 

The first great speech of Patrick Henry 
was a defiance of the Common Law of 
England when it got in the way of the 
rights of the people. Every immortal 
speech ever given has been an appeal from 
the law of man to the Higher Law. 

Patrick Henry was twenty-seven; the 
same age that Wendell Phillips was when 
he discovered himself. No one had guessed 
the genius of the man — least of all his 
parents. He himself did not know his 
power. The years that had gone had 
been fallow years — years of failure — 



Patrick Ibenrp 



377 



but it was all a getting together of his 
forces for the spring. Relaxation is the 
first requisite of strength. 

The case was a forlorn hope, and Patrick 
Henry, the awkward but clever country 
pettifogger, was retained to defend the 
" Parsons' Cause," because he had opinions 
in the matter and no reputation to lose. 

First, let it be known that Virginia had 
an Established Church, which was really 
the Church of England. The towns were 
called parishes, and the selectmen, or 
supervisors, were vestrymen. These ves- 
trymen hired the rectors or preachers, 
and the money which paid the preachers 
came from taxes levied on the people. 
Now the standard of value in Virginia 
was tobacco, and the vestrymen, instead 
of paying the parsons in money, agreed 
to pay each parson sixteen thousand 
pounds of tobacco, with curates and bish- 
ops in proportion. 

But there came a bad year; the tobacco 
crop was ruined by a drought, and the 
value of the weed doubled in price. 

The parsons demanded their tobacco; 
a bargain was a bargain; when tobacco 
was plentiful and cheap they had taken 



Ube 

parson's 
Cause 



378 



Xtttle Sourness 



Autre 
murings of 

Discontent 



their quota and said nothing. Now that 
tobacco was scarce and high, things 
were merely equalised; a contract was a 
contract. 

But the people complained. The theme 
was discussed in every tavern and store. 
There were not wanting infidels to say that 
the parsons should have prayed for rain, 
and that, as they did not secure the moist- 
ure, they were remiss. Others asked, "By 
what right shall men who do not labour 
demand a portion of the crop from those 
who plant, hoe, and harvest? " 

Of course, all good Church people, all 
of the really loyal citizens, argued that 
the parsons were a necessary part of the 
State — without them society would sink 
into savagery — and as they did their duties 
they should be paid by the people they 
served, and all contracts made with them 
should be kept. 

But the mutterings of discontent con- 
tinued, and to appease the people, the 
House of Burgesses passed a law pro- 
viding that, instead of tobacco being a 
legal tender, all debts could be paid in 
money, figuring tobacco at the rate of two 
cents per pound. As tobacco was worth 



Patrick Ibenrs 



379 



about three times this amount, it will be 
seen at once that this was a law made in 
favour of the debtor class. It cut the 
salaries of the rectors .down just two 
thirds, and struck straight at English 
Common Law, which provides for the 
sacredness of contract. 

The rectors combined and decided to 
make a test case — the parsons vs. the 
people — or, more properly, " The Rev. 
John Maury vs. The Colony of Virginia." 

Both law and equity were on the side of 
the parsons. Their case was clear ; only by 
absolutely overriding the law of England 
could the people win. The array of legal 
talent on the side of the Church included 
the best lawyers in the colony — the Ran- 
dolphs and other aristocrats were there. 

And on the other side was Patrick Henry, 
the tall, lean, lank, sallow, and uncouth 
representative of the people. Five judges 
were on the bench, one of whom was the 
father of Patrick Henry. 

The matter was opened in a logical, 
lucid, judicial speech by the Hon. Jere- 
miah Lyon. He stated the case without 
passion or prejudice — there was only one 
side to it. 



parsons 
vs. tbe 
people 



3 8o 



Xtttle Sourness 



Perfect 
poise 



Then Patrick Henry arose. He began 
to speak; stopped, hesitated, began again, 
shuffled his feet, cleared his throat, and 
his father, on the bench, blushed for shame. 
The auditors thought he was going to break 
down — even the opposition pitied him. 

Suddenly, his tall form shot up, he 
stepped one step forward and stood like a 
statue of bronze — his own father did not 
recognise him, he had so changed. His 
features were transformed from those of a 
clown into those of command and proud 
intelligence. A poise so perfect came 
upon him that it was ominous. He began 
to speak — his sentences were crystalline, 
sharp, clear, direct. The judges leaned 
forward, the audience hung breathless 
upon his words. 

He began by showing how all wealth 
comes from labour applied to the land. He 
pictured the people at their work, showed 
the labourer in the field in the rains of 
spring, under the blaze of the summer sun, 
amid the frosts of autumn — bond and free 
working side by side with brain and brawn 
to wring from the earth a scanty sus- 
tenance. He showed the homes of the 
poor, the mother with the babe at her 



Patrick Ktenvy 



381 



breast, the girls cooking at the fire, others 
tending the garden — all the process of toil 
and travail, of patient labour and endless 
effort, were rapidly marshalled forth. Over 
against this, he unveiled the clergy in 
broadcloth and silken gowns, riding in 
carriages, seated on cushions, and living a 
life of luxury. He turned and faced the 
opposition, and shook his bony finger at 
them in scorn and contempt. The faces 
of the judges grew livid; many of the 
parsons, unable to endure his withering 
rebuke, sneaked away; the people forgot 
to applaud; only silence and the stinging, 
ringing voice of the speaker filled the air. 
He accused the parsons of being the de- 
fiers of the law; the people had passed 
the statute ; the preachers had come, asking 
that it be annulled. And then was 
voiced, I believe for the first time in 
America, the truth that government exists 
only by the consent of the governed: 
that law is the crystallised opinion of the 
people — that the voice of the people 
is the voice of God — that the act of the 
parsons, in seeking to override the will 
of the people, was treason, and should 
be punished. He defied the Common Law 



tUofce of 
tbe people 



382 Xittle Sourness 



nam 



©ni^©ne of England and appealed to the law of 

•nnurr 

God — the question of right — the question 
of justice — to whom does the fruit of 
labour belong! 

Before the fiery, overpowering torrent 
of eloquence of the man, the reason of the 
judges fled. There was but one will in that 
assembly, and that will was the will of 
Patrick Henry. 



IV 



3*3 



IN that first great speech of his life — 
probably the greatest speech then 
ever given in Virginia — Patrick Henry com- 
mitted himself irrevocably on the subject 
of human rights. The theme of taxation 
came to him in a way it never had before. 
Men are taxed that other men may live 
in idleness. Those who pay the tax must 
decide whether the tax is just or not — 
anything else is robbery. We shall see 
how this thought took hold on Patrick's 
very life. It was the weak many against 
the entrenched few. He had said more 
than he had intended to say — he had 
expressed things which he never before 
knew that he knew. As he made truth 
plain to his auditors, he had clarified 
his own mind. 

The heavens had opened before him — 
he was as one transformed. That out- 



"Cbeme of 
Uayatfon 



3«4 



Xittle 3ourness 



B Strong 

person* 

alits 



ward change in his appearance only- 
marked an inward illumination which 
had come to his spirit. In great oratory 
the appearance of the man is always 
changed. Men grow by throes and throbs, 
by leaps and bounds. The idea of "Cos- 
mic Consciousness" — being born again — 
is not without its foundation in fact: 
the soul is in process of gestation, and 
when the time is ripe the new birth 
occurs, and will occur again and again. 

Patrick Henry at once took his place 
among the strong men of Virginia — he 
was a personality that must be reckoned 
with in political affairs. His law prac- 
tice doubled, and to keep it down he 
doubled his prices — with the usual effect. 
He then tried another expedient, and very 
few lawyers indeed are strong enough to 
do this — he would accept no case until 
the fee was paid in advance. " I keep no 
books — my fee is so much — pay this and 
I will undertake your case." He accepted 
no contingent cases, and if he believed his 
client was in the wrong, he told him so, 
and brought about a compromise. Some 
enemies were made through this frank 
advice, but when the fight was once on, 



Patrick Ibenrs 



385 



Patrick Henry was a whirlwind of wrath — 
he saw but one side and believed in his 
client's cause as though it had been written 
by Deity on tables of stone. 

Long years after the death of Pat- 
rick Henry, Thomas Jefferson made some 
remarks about Henry's indolence, and 
his indisposition to write out things. 
A little more insight, or less prejudice, 
would have shown that Patrick Henry's 
plan was only nature's scheme for the 
conservation of forces, and at the last 
was the highest wisdom. 

By demanding the fee in advance, the 
business was simplified immensely. It 
tested the good faith of the would-be 
litigant, cut down the number of clients, 
preserved the peace, freed the secretions, 
aided digestion, and tended to sweet sleep 
o' nights. 

Litigation is a luxury that must be paid 
for — by the other fellow, we expect when 
we begin, but later we find we are it. If 
the lawyers would form a union, and agree 
not to listen to any man's tale of woe 
until he placed a hundred dollars in the 
attorney's ginger jar, it would be a 
benefit untold to humanity. Contingent 



Simplifies 

business 



3 86 



Xittle 3ourne£s 



Secures 
tbe jf loor 



fees and blackmail have much in common. 

A man who could speak in public like 
Patrick Henry was destined for a political 
career. A vacancy in the State Legislature 
occurring, the tide of events carried him 
in. Hardly had he taken the oath and 
been seated before the House resolved 
itself into a committee of the whole to 
consider the Stamp Act. Mutterings from 
New England had been heard, but Virginia 
was inclined to abide by the acts of the 
Mother Country, gaining merely such modi- 
fications as could be brought about by 
modest argument and respectful petition. 
And in truth let it be stated that the 
Mother Country had not shown herself 
blind to the rights of the Colonies, nor deaf 
to their prayers — the aristocrats of Virginia 
usually got what they wanted. The 
Stamp Act was up for discussion — the 
gavel rapped for order, and the Speaker 
declared the house in session. 

"Mr. Speaker," rang out a high, clear 
voice. It was the voice of the new mem- 
ber. Inadvertently he was recognised 
and had the floor. There was a little more 
"senatorial courtesy" then than now in 
deliberative bodies, and one of the un- 



Patrick Ibenrg 



387 



written laws of the Virginia Legislature 
w T as that no member during his first session 
should make an extended speech or take 
an active part in the business of the house. 

"Sir, I present for the consideration of 
this House the following resolutions. " 
And the new member read seven resolu- 
tions he had scrawled off on the flyleaves 
of a convenient law book. 

As he read, the older members winced 
and writhed. Peyton Randolph cursed 
him under his breath. This audacious 
youth in buckskin shirt and leather 
breeches was assuming the leadership of 
the House. His audacity was unprece- 
dented! Here are numbers five, six, 
and seven of the resolutions — these give 
the meat of the matter : 

Resolved, That the General Assembly of 
this colony has the only and sole exclusive 
right and power to lay taxes and impositions 
upon the inhabitants of this colony; and 
that every attempt to vest such power in 
any person or persons whatsoever, other than 
the General Assembly aforesaid, has a mani- 
fest tendency to destroy British as well as 
American freedom. 

Resolved, That His Majesty's liege people, 
the inhabitants of this colony, are not bound 



Several 
IResoltts 

ttone 



3 88 



Xfttle Soutneps 



BImost 
Blone 



to yield obedience to any law or ordinance 
whatever designed to impose any taxation 
whatsoever upon them, other than the laws or 
ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid. 
Resolved, That any person who shall, by 
speaking or writing, assert or maintain that 
any person or persons, other than the General 
Assembly of this colony, have any right or 
power to impose or lay any taxation on 
the people here, shall be deemed an enemy 
to His Majesty's colony. 



As the uncouth member ceased to read, 
there went up a howl of disapproval. But 
the resolutions were launched, and accord- 
ing to the rules of the House they could be 
argued, and, in order to be repudiated, 
must be voted upon. 

Patrick Henry stood almost alone. Pit- 
ted against him was the very flower of 
Virginia's age and intellect. Logic, ar- 
gument, abuse, raillery, and threat were 
heaped upon his head. He stood like 
adamant and answered shot for shot. 
It was the speech in the " Parsons' Cause" 
multiplied by ten — the theme was the 
same: the right to confiscate the results 
of labour. Before the debater had ceased, 
couriers were carrying copies of Patrick 



Patrick t>enrs 389 

Henry's resolutions to New England. TOfn« 
Every press printed them — the people a9afn 
were aroused, and the name of Patrick 
Henry became known in every cot and 
cabin throughout the Colonies. He was 
the mouthpiece of the plain people; what 
Samuel Adams stood for in New England, 
Patrick Henry hurled in voice of thunder 
at the heads of aristocrats in Virginia. 
He lighted the fuse of rebellion. 

One passage in that first encounter in 
the Virginia Legislature has become death- 
less. Hackneyed though it be, it can 
never grow old. Referring to the injustice 
of the Stamp Act, Patrick Henry reached 
the climax of his speech in these words: 
"Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First, 
his Cromwell; and George the Third — " 
" Treason!" shouted the Speaker, and the 
gavel splintered the desk. ''Treason! 
treason!" came in roars from all over the 
house. Patrick Henry paused, proud and 
defiant, waiting for the tumult to subside — 
" and George the Third may profit by their 
example. If this be treason, make the 
most of it!" And he took his seat. The 
resolutions were put to a vote and carried. 
Again Patrick Henry had won. 



39Q 



Zbe 
EJtfference 



BY a singular coincidence, on the same 
day that Patrick Henry, of his own 
accord, introduced those resolutions at 
Williamsburg, a mass-meeting was held in 
Boston to consider the same theme, and 
similar resolutions were passed. There was 
this difference, however — Patrick Henry 
flung his reasons into the teeth of an 
intrenched opposition and fought the fight 
single-handed, while in Boston the resolu- 
tions were read and passed by an assembly 
that had met for no other purpose. 

Patrick Henry's triumph was her- 
alded throughout New England and gave 
strength and courage to those of feeble 
knees. From a colonial he sprang into 
national fame, and his own words, " I am 
not a Virginian — I am an American!" 
went ringing through New England hills. 

Meantime, Patrick Henry went back to 



Patrick 1benr£ 



391 



his farm and law office. His wife rejoiced 
in his success, laughed with him at his 
mishaps, and was always the helpful, 
uncomplaining comrade, and, as he him- 
self expressed it, "my best friend." And 
when he would get back home from one 
of his trips, the neighbours would gather to 
hear from his own lips about what he had 
done and said. He was still the unaffected 
countryman, seemingly careless, happy, 
and indolent. It was on the occasion 
of one of these family gatherings that a 
contemporary saw him and wrote: "In 
mock complaint he exclaimed, 'How can 
I play the fiddle with two babies on each 
knee and three on my back!' " 

So the years went by in work, play, and 
gradually widening fame. Patrick Henry 
grew with his work; the years gave him 
dignity — gradually the thought of his 
heart graved its lines upon his face. The 
mouth became firm and the entire look 
of the man was that of earnest resolution. 
Fate was pushing him on. What once 
was only whispered, he had voiced in 
trumpet tones; the thought of liberty was 
being openly expressed even in pulpits. 

He had been returned to the Legislature, 



Increasing 
?ame 



392 



Xittie Sourneps 



UMrt> 

©reat 

Speecb 



was a member of the Continental Congress, 
and rode horseback side by side with 
Washington and Pendleton to Philadel- 
phia, as told at length in Washington's 
diary. 

In his utterances he was a little less 
fiery, but in his heart, everybody who 
knew him at all realised that there dwelt 
the thought of liberty for the Colonies. 
John Adams wrote to Abigail that Patrick 
Henry looked like a Quaker preacher 
turned Presbyterian. 

A year later came what has been rightly 
called the third great speech of Henry's 
life, the speech at the Revolutionary Con- 
vention at Richmond. Good people often 
expect to hear oratory at a banquet, a 
lyceum lecture, or in a Sunday sermon; 
but oratory is neither lecture talk, har- 
angue, declamation, nor preaching, Of 
course, we say that the great speech is the 
one that has been given many times, but 
the fact is, the great speech is never given 
but once. 

The time is ripe — the hour arrives — 
mighty issues tremble in the balances. 
The auditors are not there to be amused 
or instructed — they have not stopped at 



Patrick Ibenrp 



393 



the box-office and paid good money to 
have their senses alternately lulled and 
titillated — no! The question is that of 
liberty or bondage, life or death — passion 
is in the saddle, — hate and prejudice are 
sweeping events into a maelstrom, — and 
now is the time for oratory! Such occa- 
sions are as rare as the birth of stars. 
A man stands before you — it is no time for 
fine phrasing — no time for pose or plati- 
tude. Self-consciousness is swallowed up 
in purpose. He is as calm as the waters 
above the rapids of Niagara, as composed 
as a lioness before she makes her spring. 
Intensity measures itself in perfect poise. 
And Patrick Henry arises to speak. Those 
who love the man pray for him in breath- 
less silence, and the many who hate him 
in their hearts curse him. Pale faces 
grow paler, throats swallow hard, hands 
clutch at nothing and open and shut in 
nervous spasms. It is the hour of fate. 
Patrick Henry speaks. 



Ube f)our 
of ffate 



394 



VI 






Mr. President : It is natural for man to 
indulge in the illusions of hope. We are 
apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, 
and listen to the song of the siren until she 
transforms us into beasts. Is this the part 
of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous 
struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be 
of the number of those who having eyes see 
not and having ears hear not the things 
which so nearly concern their temporal salva- 
tion? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit 
it may cost, I am willing to know the whole 
truth ; to know the worst and to provide for it. 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are 
guided, and that is the lamp of experience. 
I know of no way of judging of the future 
but by the past. And, judging by the past, 
I wish to know what there has been in the 
conduct of the British Ministry, for the last 
ten years, to justify those hopes with which 



patricfe Ibenrs 



395 



gentlemen have been pleased to solace them- 
selves and this house? Is it that insidious 
smile with which our petition has been lately- 
received? Trust it not: it will prove a snare 
to your feet. Suffer not yourself to be 
betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how 
this gracious reception of our petition com- 
ports with those warlike preparations which 
cover our waters and darken our land. 
Are fleets and armies necessary to a work 
of love and reconciliation? Have we shown 
ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that 
force must be called in to win back our love? 
Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are 
the instruments of war and subjugation — 
the last arguments to which kings resort. 
I say, gentlemen, what means this martial 
array, if its purpose be not to force us to 
submission? Can you assign any other pos- 
sible motive for it? Has Britain any enemy 
in this quarter of the world, to call for all 
this accumulation of navies and armies? 
No, sir, she has none. They are meant for 
us; they can be meant for no other. They 
are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those 
chains which the British Ministry have been 
so long forging. And what have we to 
oppose to them? Shall we try argument? 
Sir, we have been trying that for the last 
ten years. Have we anything new to offer 



Stftteb 

Cfaatns 



396 



Xittle Journeys 



Ube Storm 
is Coming 



upon the subject? Nothing. We have held 
the subject up in every light of which it is 
capable ; but it has been all in vain. Shall we 
resort to entreaty and humble supplication? 
What terms shall we find which have not been 
already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech 
you, deceive ourselves longer. 

Sir, we have done everything that could 
be done to avert the storm which is now 
coming on. We have petitioned, we have 
remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have 
prostrated ourselves before the throne, and 
have implored its interposition to arrest the 
tyrannical hands of the Ministry and Parlia- 
ment. Our petitions have been slighted; 
our remonstrances have produced additional 
violence and insult; our supplications have 
been disregarded ; and we have been spurned 
with contempt from the foot of the throne. 
In vain, after these things, may we indulge 
the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. 
There is no longer any room for hope. If 
we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve 
inviolate those inestimable privileges for 
which we have been so long contending, 
if we mean not basely to abandon the noble 
struggle in which we have been so long 
engaged, and wjiich we have pledged our- 
selves never to abandon until the glorious 
object of our contest shall be obtained — we 



Patrick Ifoenrs 



397 



must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! 
An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts 
is all that is left us! 

They tell us, sir, that we are weak — unable 
to cope with so formidable an adversary. 
But when shall we be stronger? Will it be 
the next week, or the next year? Will it be 
when we are totally disarmed, and when a 
British guard shall be stationed in every 
house? Shall we gather strength by irreso- 
lution and inaction? Shall we require the 
means of effectual resistance by lying supinely 
on our backs, and hugging the delusive phan- 
tom of hope until our enemies shall have 
bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not 
weak, if we make a proper use of those means 
which the God of nature has placed in our 
power. Three millions of people, armed in 
the holy cause of liberty, and in such a 
country as that which we possess, are invin- 
cible by any force which our enemy can send 
against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight 
our battles alone. There is a just God who 
presides over the destinies of nations, and 
who will raise up friends to fight our battles 
for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong 
alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the 
brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. 
If we were base enough to desire it, it is 
now too late to retire from the contest. 



"Me must 
Jffgbt 



398 



Xittle Sourness 



liberty or 
5>eatb 



There is no retreat but in submission and 
slavery! Our chains are forged; their clank- 
ing may be heard on the plains of Boston! 
The war is inevitable — and let it come! I 
repeat it, sir, let it come! 

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. 
Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace; but there 
is no peace. The war is actually begun. 
The next gale that sweeps from the north 
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding 
arms. Our brethren are already in the 
field. Why stand we here idle? What is it 
that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? 
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be 
purchased at the price of chains and slavery? 
Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what 
course others may take, but as for me, give 
me liberty or give me death! 



VII 



399 



LIFE is a gradual death. There are 
animals and insects that die on the 
instant of the culmination of the act for 
which they were created. Success is death, 
and death, if you have bargained wisely 
with fate, is victory. 

Patrick Henry, with his panther's 
strength and nerves of steel, had thrown 
his life into a cause — that cause had won, 
and now the lassitude of dissolution crept 
into his veins. We hear of hair growing 
white in a single day, and we know that 
men may round out a life-work in an hour. 
Oratory, like all of God's greatest gifts, 
is bought with a price. The abandon of 
the orator is the spending of his divine 
heritage for a purpose. 

Patrick Henry had given himself. Even 
in his law business he was the conscien- 
tious servant, and, having undertaken a 



iifesTHHorft 
fin&efc 



4oo Xittie Journeys 

1Retire^ cause, he put his soul into it. Shame upon 
those who call this man indolent ! He often 
did in a day — between the rising of the 
sun and its setting — what others spread 
out thin over a lifetime and then fail to 
accomplish. 

And now virtue had gone out from him. 
Four times had Virginia elected him 
Governor; he had served his State well, 
and on the fifth nomination he had 
declined. When Washington wished to 
make him his Secretary of State, he 
smiled and shook his head; and to the 
entreaty that he be Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court, he said that there 
were others who could fill the place better, 
but he knew of no one who could manage 
his farm. 

And so again he became the country 
lawyer, looked after his plantation, at- 
tended to the education of his children, 
told stories to the neighbours who came 
and sat on the veranda; now and again 
went to rustic parties, played the violin, 
and the voice that had cried, "Give me 
liberty or give me death," called off for 
the merry dancers as in the days of old. 

In 1799, at the personal request of 



Patrick "flbenr^ 



401 



Washington, who needed, or thought he 
needed, a strong advocate at the Capitol, 
Patrick Henry ran for the Legislature. 
He was elected, but before the day arrived 
when he was to take his seat he sickened 
and died, surrounded by his stricken 
family. Those who knew him loved him — 
those who did not love him did not know 
him. 

And a Nation mourned his taking off. 



flDournefc f>£ 
a Nation 



STARR KING 



403 



4°5 



The chief difference between a wise man and an 
ignorant one is, not that the first is acquainted with 
regions invisible to the second, away from common 
sight and interest, but that he understands the 
common things which the second only sees. 

Sight and Insight. 



Wisdom 



4°7 



IF you had chanced to live in Boston in 
the early nineties, alert for all good 
things in a mental and spiritual way, you 
would have made the Sundays sacred to 
Minot Savage, Phillips Brooks, and Ed- 
ward Everett Hale. 

Emerson says that if you know a clergy- 
man's sect, and behold his livery, in spite 
of all his show of approaching the subject 
without prejudice, you know beforehand 
exactly to what conclusions he will come. 
This is what robs most sermons of their 
interest. Preaching, like humour, must 
have in it the element of surprise. I 
remember with what a thrill of delight 
I would sit and watch Minot Savage un- 
wind his logic and then gently weave it 
into a fabric. The man was not afraid 
to follow a reason to its lair. He had a 
way of saying the thing for the first time 
— it came as a personal message, con- 



Elcment of 

Surprise 



408 



Xittle Sourness 



flMunflfng 
into a 

Ubeme 



tradicting, possibly, all that had been 
said before on the subject, oblivious of 
precedent. 

I once saw a man with a line around 
his waist leap from a stranded ship into 
the sea, and strike out boldly for the 
shore. The thrill of admiration for the 
act was unforgettable. 

The joy of beholding a strong and 
valiant thinker plunge into a theme is an 
event. Will he make the shore? or will 
he go down to defeat before these thou- 
sands of spectators? 

When Minot Savage ceased to speak 
you knew he had won — he had brought 
the line safely to shore and made all secure. 

Or, if you have heard Rabbi Hirsch or 
Felix Adler, you know the feeling. These 
men make a demand upon you — you play 
out the line for them, and when all is secure, 
there is a relief which shows you have 
been under an intense strain. To para- 
phrase Browning, they offer no substitute, 
to an idle man, for a cushioned chair and 
cigar. 

Phillips Brooks made small demand 
upon his auditors. If I heard Minot 
Savage in the morning and got wound up 



c\ 



4©8 



fHuntffng 
into a 
Ubeme 






>ume£0 



had b 
ious of 



iround 






f beholding 
it thinker plunge into a theme 

Starr Kino- tne shore? or will 

„ l at before these thou- 

rrom a steel engraving 



k 



men make a demand upon you — you play 
out the line for them, and when all is secure, 
there is a reliet_which shows you h 
under an intense 



nand 

linot 

wound up 



Starr Iking 



409 



tight, as I always did, I went to vespers at 
Trinity Church for rest. 

The soft, sweet playing of the organ, 
the subdued lights, the far-away voices of 
the choir, and finally the earnest words of 
the speaker, worked a psychic spell. The 
sermon began nowhere and ended no- 
where — the speaker was a great, gentle 
personality, with a heart of love for 
everybody and everything. We have 
heard of the old lady who would go miles 
to hear her pastor pronounce the word 
"Mesopotamia," but he put no more soul 
into it than did Phillips Brooks. The 
service was all a sort of lullaby for tired 
souls — healing and helpful. 

But, as after every indulgence there 
comes a minor strain of dissatisfaction 
following the awakening, so it was here — 
it was beautiful while it lasted. Then 
eight o'clock would come and I would be 
at Edward Everett Hale's. This sturdy 
old man, with his towering form, rugged 
face, and echoing bass voice, would open 
up the stops and give his blessed " Me- 
sopotamia" like a trumpet call. He 
never worked the soft pedal. His first 
words always made me think of " Boots 



B 

Urumpet 

Call 



4io 



Xfttle 3ourne£s 



Aemorfal 

TOUnbow 



and Saddles !" Be a man — do something. 
Why stand ye here all the day idle ! 

And there was love and entreaty, too, 
but it never lulled you into forgetfulness. 
There was intellect, but it did not ask you 
to follow it. The dear old man did not 
wind in and out among the sinuosities of 
thought — no, he was right out on the 
broad prairie, under the open sky, 
sounding "Boots and Saddles!" 

In Dr. Hale's church is a most beautiful 
memorial window to Thomas Starr King, 
who was at one time the pastor of this 
church. I remember Dr. Hale once rose 
and, pointing to that window, said: "That 
window is in memory of a man! But how 
vain a window, how absurd a monument, 
if the man had not left his impress upon 
the hearts of humanity! That beautiful 
window only mirrors our memories of the 
individual." 

And then Dr. Hale talked, just talked 
for an hour about Starr King. 

Dr. Hale has given that same talk or 
sermon every year for thirty years: I 
have heard it three times, but never twice 
exactly alike. I have tried to get a printed 
copy of the address, but have so far failed. 



Start Ikina 



411 



Yet this is sure : you cannot hear Dr. Hale 
tell of Starr King without a feeling that 
King was a most royal specimen of human- 
ity, and a wish down deep in your heart 
that you, too, might reflect some of the 
sterling virtues that he possessed. 



ttosal 
Specimen 



412 



II 



H 

(Ptftefc Soul 



STARR KING died in California in 1864. 
In Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 
is his statue in bronze. In the First Uni- 
tarian Church of San Francisco is a tablet 
to his memory; in the Unitarian Church 
at Oakland are many loving tokens to his 
personality; and in the State-House at 
Sacramento is his portrait and an engrossed 
copy of resolutions passed by the Legisla- 
ture at the time of his death, wherein he 
is referred to as " the man whose matchless 
oratory saved California to the Union/ ' 

"Who was Starr King?" I once asked 
Dr. Charles H. Leonard of Tufts College. 
And the saintly old man lifted his eyes as 
if in prayer of thankfulness and answered: 
"Starr King! Starr King! He was the 
gentlest and strongest, the most gifted 
soul I ever knew — I bless God that I lived 
just to know Starr King!" 



Starr IktriQ 



413 



Not long after this I asked Dr. C. 
A. Bartol the same question that I had 
asked Dr. Leonard, and the reply was: 
" He was a man who proved the possible — 
in point of temper and talent, the most 
virile personality that New England has 
produced. We call Webster our greatest 
orator, but this man surpassed Webster; 
he had a smile that was a benediction, a 
voice that was a caress. We admired 
Webster, but Starr King we loved: one 
convinced our reason, the other captured 
our hearts." 



H Virile 

persons 

aKts 



414 



III 



a Aattet 
of 2>e«lrc 



THE Oriental custom of presenting a 
thing to the friend who admires it 
symbols a very great truth. If you love 
a thing well enough, you make it yours. 

Culture is a matter of desire ; knowledge 
is to be had for the asking, and education 
is yours if you want it. All men should 
have a college education in order that they 
may know its worthlessness. George Wil- 
liam Curtis was a very prince of gentle- 
men, and as an orator he won by his 
manner and by his gentle voice fully as 
much as by the orderly procession of his 
thoughts. 

"Oh, what is it in me that makes me 
tremble so at voices ! Whoever speaks to 
me in the right voice, him or her will I 
follow," says Walt Whitman. 

If you have ever loved a woman, and 
you care to go back to May-time and try 



Starr Iking 



415 



to analyse the why and the wherefore, 
you probably will not be able to locate 
the why and the wherefore, but this nega- 
tive truth you will discover: you were not 
won by logic. Of course you admired 
the woman's intellect — it sort of matched 
your own, and in loving her you compli- 
mented yourself, for thus by love and 
admiration do we prove our kinship with 
the thing loved. 

But intellect alone is too cold to fuse 
the heart. Something else is required, 
and for lacjc of a better word we call 
it "personality." This glowing, winning 
personality that inspires confidence and 
trust is a bouquet of virtues, the chief 
flower of which is right intent — honesty 
may be a bit old-fashioned, but do not try 
to leave it out. 

George William Curtis and Starr King 
had a frank, wide-open, genuine quality 
that disarmed prejudice right at the start. 
And both were big enough so that they 
never bemoaned the fact that fate had 
sent them to the University of Hard 
Knocks instead of matriculating them at 
Harvard. 

I once heard George William Curtis 



TOlbat 
Counts 



416 



Xittle Journeps 



Hble to 2Do 
TOUtbout 



speak at St. James Hall, Buffalo, on civil 
service reform — a most appalling subject 
with which to hold a " popular audience." 
He was introduced by the Hon. Sherman 
S. Rogers, a man who was known for ten 
miles up the creek as the greatest orator 
in Erie County. After the speech of 
introduction, Curtis stepped to the front, 
laid on the reading desk a bundle of manu- 
script, turned one page, and began to talk. 
He talked for two hours, and never once 
again referred to his manuscript — we 
thought he had forgotten it. „ He himself 
tells somewhere of Edward Everett doing 
the same. It is fine to have a thing and 
still show that you do not need it. The 
style of Curtis was in such marked con- 
trast to the blue-grass article represented 
by Rogers, that it seemed a rebuke. 
One was florid, declamatory, strong, full 
of reasons: the other was keyed low — it 
was so melodious, so gently persuasive, 
that we were thrown off our guard and 
did not know we had imbibed rank heresy 
until we were told so the next day by a 
man who was not there. As the speaker 
closed, an old lady seated near me sighed 
softly, adjusted her Paisley shawl, and said, 



Starr Iking 



417 



"That was the finest address I ever 
heard, excepting one given in this very hall 
in 1859 by Starr King." 

And I said, " Well, a speech that you can 
remember for twenty-five years must have 
been a good one!" 

"It was n't the address so much as the 
man," answered this mother in Israel, 
and she heaved another small sigh. And 
therein did the good old lady drop a 
confession. I doubt me much whether 
any woman will remember any speech for 
a week — she remembers the man. 

And this applies pretty nearly as much 
to men, too. Is there sex in spirit? 
Hardly. Thoreau says the character of 
Jesus was essentially feminine. Herbert 
Spencer avers, "The high intuitive quality 
which we call genius is largely feminine 
in character." "Starr King was the child 
of his mother, and his best qualities were 
feminine," said the Rev. E. H. Chapin. 

When Starr King's father died the boy 
was fifteen. There were five younger 
children and Starr was made man of the 
house by destiny's acclaim. Responsi- 
bility ripens. This slim, slender youth 
became a man in a day. 



flDan of 
tbe "frouse 



418 



Xittle Journeys 



I n a Brie* 

©oofcs 
Store 



The father had been the pastor of the 
Charlestown Universalist Church. I sup- 
pose it is hardly necessary to take a page 
and prove that this clergyman in an 
unpopular church did not leave a large 
fortune to his family. In truth, he left a 
legacy of debts. Starr King, the boy of 
fifteen, left school and became clerk in 
a dry-goods store. The mother cared for 
her household and took in sewing. 

Joshua Bates, master of the Winthrop 
school, describes Starr King as he was 
when the father's death cut off his school 
days : " Slight of build, golden-haired, ac- 
tive, agile, with a homely face which 
everybody thought was handsome on ac- 
count of the beaming eyes, the winning 
smile and the earnest desire of always 
wanting to do what was best and 
right. ,, 

This kind of a boy gets along all right 
anywhere — God is on his side. The hours 
in the dry-goods store were long, and on 
Saturday nights it was nearly midnight 
before Starr would reach home. But 
there was a light in the window for him, 
even if whale oil was scarce; and the 
mother was at her sewing. Together they 



Starr Iking 



419 



ate their midnight lunch, and counted 
the earnings of the week. 

And the surprise of both that they were 
getting a living and paying off the debts 
sort of cleared the atmosphere of its gloom. 

In Burke's Essay on the Sublime he 
speaks of the quiet joy that comes through 
calamity when we discover that the ca- 
lamity has not really touched us. The 
death of a father who leaves a penniless 
widow and a hungry brood comes at first 
as a shock — the heavens are darkened 
and hope has fled. 

I know a man who was in a railroad 
wreck — the sleeping-car in which he rode 
left the track and rolled down an embank- 
ment. There was a black interval of 
horror and then this man found himself, 
clad in his underclothes, standing on the 
upturned car, looking up at the Pleiades 
and this thought in his mind — "What 
beauty and peace are in these winter 
heavens!" The calamity had come — he 
was absolutely untouched — he was locat- 
ing the constellations and surprised and 
happy in his ability to enjoy them. 

Starr King and his mother sipped their 
midnight tea and grew jolly over the 



TUntoucbea 
Calamity 



420 



Xittle Journeys 



Soul ano 
Service 



thought of their comfortable home - they 
were clothed and fed; the children well 
and sleeping soundly in baby abandon 
upstairs; the debts were being paid. 
They laughed, did this mother and son, 
really laughed aloud, when only a month 
before they had thought that only gloom 
and misery could ever again be theirs. 

They laughed! 

And soon the young man's salary was 
increased; people liked to trade with 
him — customers came and asked that he 
might wait on them. He sold more goods 
than any one in his department, and yet 
he never talked things on to people. He 
was alert, affable, kindly, and anticipated 
the wishes and wants of his customers 
without being subservient, fawning, or 
domineering. This kind of a helper is 
needed everywhere — the one who gives a 
willing hand, who puts soul into his ser- 
vice, who brings a glow of good cheer into 
all of his relations with men. 

The doing things with a hearty enthusi- 
asm is often what makes the doer a marked 
person and his deeds effective. The most 
ordinary service is dignified when it is 
performed in that spirit. Every employer 



Starr Iking 



421 



wants those who work for him to put heart 
and mind into the toil. He soon picks out 
those whose souls are in their service, and 
gives them evidence of his appreciation. 
They do not need constant watching. He 
can trust them in his absence, and so 
the places of honour and profit naturally 
gravitate to them. 

The years went by, and one fine day 
Starr King was twenty years of age. 
All of the debts were paid, the children 
were going to school, and mother and son 
faced the world from the vantage ground 
of success. Starr had quit the dry -goods 
trade and gone to teaching school on less 
salary, so as to get more leisure for study. 

Incidentally he kept books at the navy 
yard. 

About this time Theodore Parker wrote 
to a friend in Maiden, "I cannot come to 
preach for you as I would like, but with 
your permission I will send Thomas Starr 
King. This young man is not a regularly 
ordained preacher, but he has the grace 
of God in his heart, and the gift of tongues. 
He is a rare sweet spirit, and I know that 
after you have met him you will thank me 
for sending him to you." 



On a 
Vantage 
(Brounb 



422 



Xittle Journeys 



dbapfn ai^ 
Beecber 



Then soon we hear of Starr King's being 
invited to Medford to give a Fourth of 
July oration, and also of his speaking in 
the Universalist churches at Cambridge, 
Walt ham, Watertown, Hingham and 
Salem — sent to these places by Dr. E. H. 
Chapin, pastor of the Charlestown Uni- 
versalist Church, and successor to the Rev. 
Thomas F. King, father of Starr King. 

Starr seems to have served as a sort of an 
assistant to Chapin, and thereby revealed 
his talent and won the heart of the great 
man. Edwin Hubbell Chapin was only 
ten years older than Starr King, and at 
that time had not really discovered him- 
self, but in discovering another he found 
himself. Twenty years later Beecher and 
Chapin were to rival each other for first 
place as America's greatest pulpit orator. 
These men were always fast friends, yet 
when they met at convention or conference 
folks came for miles to see the fire fly. 
"Where are you going ?" once asked 
Beecher of Chapin when they met by 
chance on Broadway. "Where am I 
going?" repeated Chapin, "why, if you 
are right in what you preach, you know 
where I am going." But only a few years 



Starr iking 



423 



were to pass before Chapin said in public 
in Beecher's presence, " I am jealous of Mr. 
Beecher — he preaches a better Universal]' st 
sermon than I can." Chapin made his 
mark upon the time: his sermons read as 
though they were written yesterday, and 
carry with them a deal of the swing and 
onward sweep that are usually lost when 
the orator attempts to write. But if 
Chapin had done nothing else but discover 
Starr King, the dry-goods clerk, rescue 
him from the clutch of commerce and back 
him on the orator's platform, he deserves 
the gratitude of generations. And all 
this I say as a business man who fully 
recognises that commerce is just as hon- 
ourable and a deal more necessary than 
oratory. But there were other men to 
sell thread and. calico, and God had special 
work for Thomas Starr King. 

Chapin was a graduate of Bennington 
Seminary, the school that also graduated 
the father of Robert Ingersoll. On Cha- 
pin's request, Theodore Parker, himself a 
Harvard man, sent Starr King over to 
Cambridge to preach. Boston was a col- 
lege town — filled with college traditions, 
and when one thinks of sending out this 



Discoverer 
of Iking 



424 



Xtttle Journeys 



"toow 
Ebucatei> 



untaught stripling to address college men 
we cannot but admire the temerity of both 
Chapin and Parker. "He has never at- 
tended a divinity school," writes Chapin 
to Deacon Obadiah B. Queer of Quincy, 
"but he is educated just the same. He 
speaks Greek, Hebrew, French, German, 
and fairly good English, as you will see. 
He knows natural history and he knows 
humanity; and if one knows man and 
nature, he comes pretty close to knowing 
God." 

Where did this dry-goods clerk get his 
education? Ah, I '11 tell you — he got 
his education as the lion's whelp gets 
his. The lioness does not send her cubs 
away to a lioness that has no cubs in order 
that he may be taught. The lion -nature 
gets what it needs with its mother's milk 
and by doing. 

Schools and colleges are cumbrous make- 
shifts, often forcing truth on pupils out of 
season, and thus making lessons grievous. 
"The soul knows all things," says Emer- 
son, "and knowledge is only a remember- 
ing. " " When the time is ripe, men know , ' ' 
wrote Hegel. At the last we cannot teach 
anything — nothing is imparted. We can- 



Starr Iking 



425 



not make the plants and flowers grow — 
all we can do is to supply the conditions, 
and God does the rest. In education, we 
can only supply the conditions for growth 
— we cannot impart, or force the germs 
to unfold. 

Starr King's mother was his teacher. 
Together they read good books, and dis- 
cussed great themes. She read for him 
and he studied for her. She did not 
treat him as a child — things that inter- 
ested her she told to him. The sunshine 
of her soul was reflected upon h;s, and 
thus did he grow. I know a woman whose 
children will be learned, even though they 
never enter a school-room. This woman 
is a companion to her children and her 
mind vitalises theirs. This does not mean 
that we should at once do away with 
schools and colleges, but it does reveal the 
possible. To read and then discuss with 
a strong and sympathetic intellect what 
you read is to make the thought your own 
— it is a form of exercise that brings 
growth. 

Starr King's mother was not a wonder- 
ful or famous person. I find no mention 
of her in society's doings of the day — 



Starr 
Tking'B 
Mother 



426 Xittle Journeys 

xtgbtin nothing of her dress or equipage. If 
•ociin&ow she was "superbly gowned," we do not 
know it; if she was ever one of the "un- 
bonneted/' history is silent. All we know 
is, that together they read Bullfinch's 
Mythology, Grote's History of Greece 
Plutarch, Dante, and Shakespeare. We 
know that she placed a light in the win- 
dow for him to make his home-coming 
cheerful, that together they sipped their 
midnight tea, that together they laughed, 
and sometimes wept — but not for long. 



IV 



427 



IN 1846, Chapin was thirty-two years old. 
Starr King was twenty-two. A call 
had reached Chapin to come up higher; 
but he refused to leave the old church at 
Charlestown unless Starr King was to 
succeed him. To place a young man in 
the position of pastor where he sat in the 
pews, his feet not reaching the floor, is 
most trying. Starr King knew every 
individual man, woman, and child in the 
church, and they had known him since 
boyhood. In appearance he was but a 
boy, and the dignity that is supposed to 
send conviction home was entirely want- 
ing. But Chapin had his way, and the 
boy was duly ordained and installed as 
pastor of the First Universal] st Church of 
Charlestown. 

The new pastor fully expected his 
congregation to give him "absent treat- 



IFnstallet) 
at 

C'aarles= 
town 



428 



Xtttle 3ourne£S 



Ube Una 

tellectual 

Dub 



ment," but instead, the audience grew — 
folks even came over from Boston to hear 
the boy preacher. His sermons were 
carefully written, and dealt in the simple, 
everyday lessons of life. To Starr King 
this world is paradise enow ; it 's the best 
place of which we know, and the way for 
man to help himself is to try and make it 
a better place. There is a flavour of Theo- 
dore Parker in those early sermons, a trace 
of Thoreau, and much tincture of Emer- 
son — and all this was to the credit of the 
boy preacher. His woman's mind ab- 
sorbed things. 

About that time Boston was in very 
fact the intellectual hub of America. 
Emerson was forty-three; his Nature had 
been published anonymously, and, al- 
though it took eight years to sell this 
edition of five hundred copies, the author 
was in demand as a lecturer, and in some 
places society conceded him respectable. 
Wendell Phillips was addressing audiences 
that alternately applauded and jeered. 
Thoreau had discovered the Merrimac 
and explored Walden Woods; little Dr. 
Holmes was peregrinating in his One Hoss 
Shay, vouchsafing the confidences of his 



Starr Iking 



429 



boarding-house; Lowell was beginning to 
violate the rules of rhetoric ; Whittier was 
making his plea for the runaway slave; 
and throughout New England the lecture 
lyceum was feeling its way. 

A lecture course was then no vaude- 
ville — five concerts and two lectures to 
take off the curse — not that! The speak- 
ers supplied strong meat for men. The 
stars in the lyceum sky w T ere Emerson, 
Chapin, Beecher, Holmes, Bartol, Phillips, 
Ballou, Everett, and Lowell. These men 
made the New England lyceum a vast 
pulpit of free speech and advanced thought. 
And to a degree the lyceum made these 
men what they were They influenced 
the times and were influenced by the 
times. They were in competition with 
each other. A pace had been set, a record 
made, and the audiences that gathered 
expected much. An audience gets just 
what it deserves and no more. If you 
have listened to a poor speech, blame 
yourself. 

In the life of George Francis Train he 
tells that in 1840 Emerson spoke in Wal- 
tham for five dollars and four quarts of oats 
for his horse — now he received twenty- 



stars in 

tbeX^ceum 

Sftig 



43° 



Xtttle Journeys 



Callefc to 
IKflorcester 



five dollars. Chapin got the same, and 
when the committee could not afford this, 
he referred them to Starr King, who 
would lecture for five dollars and supply 
his own horse-feed. 

Two years went by and calls came for 
Starr King to come up higher. Worcester 
would double his salary if he would take a 
year's course at the Harvard Divinity 
School. Starr showed the letter to Chapin t 
and both laughed. Worcester was satis- 
fied with Starr King as he was, but what 
would Springfield say if they called a 
man who had no theological training? 
And then it was that Chapin said, 
"Divinity is not taught in the Harvard 
Divinity School," which sounds like a 
paraphrase of Ernest Renan, "You will 
find God anywhere but in a theological 
seminary." 

King declined the call to Worcester, but 
harkened to one from the Hollis Street 
Church of Boston. He went over from 
Universalism to Unitarianism and still 
remained a Universalist — and this created 
quite a dust among the theologs. Little 
men love their denomination with a jealous 
love; truth is secondary — they see micro- 



Start Iking 



431 



scopic difference where big men behold Httbe 
only unity. *SJj 

It was about this time that Starr King Cbttccb 
pronounced this classic: "The difference 
between Universalism and Unitarianism 
is that Universalists believe that God is 
too good to damn them and the Unita- 
rians believe that they are too good to be 
damned/ ' 

At the Hollis Street Church this strip- 
ling of twenty-four now found himself 
being compared with the foremost preach- 
ers of America. And the man grew with 
his work, rising to the level of events. 
It was at the grave of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes that Edward Everett Hale said: 
"The five men who have influenced the 
literary and intellectual thought of Amer- 
ica most, believed in their own divinity 
no less than in the divinity of Jesus of 
Nazareth." 

The destiny of the liberal church is not 
to become strong and powerful, but to 
make all other denominations more liberal. 
When Chapin accused Beecher of preach- 
ing Universalist sermons, it was a home 
thrust, because Beecher would never have 
preached such sermons had not Murray, 



43 2 



%ittle Sourness 



B 

ZlfteloMous 
Dolce 



Ballou, Theodore Parker, Chapin, and 
Starr King done so first — and Beecher 
supplied the goods called for. 

Starr King's voice was deep, melodious, 
and far-reaching, and it was not an 
acquired "bishop's voice" — it was his 
own. The biggest basso I ever heard 
was just five feet high and weighed one 
hundred and twenty in his stockings; 
Brignoli, the tenor, weighed two hundred 
and forty. Avoirdupois as a rule lessens 
the volume of the voice and heightens the 
register— you cannot have both adipose and 
chest tone. Webster and Starr King had 
voices very much alike; and Webster, by 
the way, was not the big man physically 
that the school readers proclaim. It was 
his gigantic head and the royal way he 
carried himself that made the Liverpool 
stevedores say, "There goes the King of 
America." 

There was no pomposity about Stan- 
King. Dr. Bartol has said that when 
King lectured in a new town his homely, 
boyish face always caused a small spasm 
of disappointment, or merriment, to sweep 
over the audience. But when he spoke 
he was a transformed being, and his deep 



Starr Iking 



433 



mellow voice would hush the most inveter- 
ate whisperers. 

For eleven years, Starr King remained 
pastor of the Hollis Street Church. Dur- 
ing the last years of his pastorate, he was 
much in demand as a lecturer, and his 
voice was heard in all the principal cities 
as far west as Chicago. 

His lecture "Substance and Show" 
deserves to rank with Wendell Phillips's 
"The Lost Arts." In truth it is very 
much like Phillips's lecture. In "The 
Lost Arts" Phillips tells in easy conver- 
sational way of the wonderful things that 
once existed; and Starr King relates in 
the same manner the story of some of the 
wonderful things that are right here and 
all around us. It reveals the mind of the 
man, his manner and thought, as well as 
any of his productions. The great speech 
is an evolution, and this lecture, given 
many times in the Eastern States under 
various titles, did not really touch high- 
water mark until King reached California 
and had cut loose from manuscript and 
tradition. An extract seems in order: 

Most persons, doubtless, if you place before 
them a paving-stone and a slip of paper with 



Substance 
an& Sbow 



434 



Xittle Sourness 



Substance 



some writing on it, would not hesitate to say 
that there is as much more substance in the 
rock than in the paper as there is heaviness. 
Yet they might make a great mistake. Sup- 
pose that the slip of paper contains the 
sentence, "God is love"; or, "Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour as thyself"; or, "All men 
have moral rights by reason of heavenly 
parentage" — then the paper represents more 
force and substance than the stone. Heaven 
and earth may pass away, but such words 
can never die out or become less real. 

The word "substance" means that which 
stands under and supports anything else. 
Whatever then creates, upholds, classifies 
anything which our senses behold, though 
we cannot handle, see, taste, or smell it, is 
more substantial than the object itself. 
In this way the soul, which vivifies, moves, 
and supports the body, is a more potent 
substance than the hard bones and heavy 
flesh which it vitalises. A ten-pound weight 
falling on your head affects you unpleasantly 
as substance, much more so than a leaf of the 
New Testament, if dropped in the same 
direction ; but there is a way in which a page 
of the New Testament may fall upon a nation 
and split it, or infuse itself into its bulk and 
give it strength and permanence. We should 
be careful, therefore, what test we adopt in 



Starr ftfng 



435 



order to decide the relative stability of things. 
There is a very general tendency to deny 
that ideal forces have any practical power. 
But there have been several thinkers whose 
scepticism has an opposite direction. "We 
cannot," they say, "attribute external reality 
to the sensations we feel." We need not 
wonder that this theory has failed to convince 
the unmetaphysical common-sense of people 
that a stone post is merely a stubborn thought, 
and that the bite of a dog is nothing but an 
acquaintance with a pugnacious, four-footed 
conception. When a man falls down-stairs 
it is not easy to convince him that his thought 
simply tumbles along an inclined series of 
perceptions and comes to a conclusion that 
breaks his head; least of all can you induce 
a man to believe that the scolding of his wife 
is nothing but the buzzing of his own waspish 
thoughts, and her too free use of his purse 
only the loss of some golden fancies from his 
memory. We are all safe against such idealism 
as Bishop Berkeley reasoned out so logically. 
Byron's refutation of it is neat and witty: 



Xcrbcles'0 

Idealism 



When Bishop Berkeley says there is no matter, 
It is no matter what Bishop Berkeley says. 



And yet, by more satisfactory evidence 
than that which the idealists propose, we are 
warned against confounding the conception 



43 6 



Xittle Journeys 



power of 
•ffnvieible 

Ubings 



of substance with matter, and confining it 
to things we can see and grasp. Science steps 
in and shows us that the physical system of 
things leans on spirit. We talk of the world 
of matter, but there is no such world. Every- 
thing about us is a mixture or marriage of 
matter and spirit. A world of matter — 
there would be no motion, no force, no form, 
no order, no beauty, in the universe as it 
now is; organisation meets us at every step 
and wherever we look; organisation implies 
spirit, — something that rules, disposes, pene- 
trates, and vivifies matter. 

See what a sermon astronomy preaches as 
to the substantial power of invisible things. 
If the visible universe is so stupendous, what 
shall we think of the unseen force and vitality 
in whose arms all its splendours rest? It is 
no gigantic Atlas, as the Greeks fancied, that 
upholds the celestial sphere ; all the constella- 
tions are kept from falling by an impalpable 
energy that uses no muscles and no masonry. 
The ancient mathematician Archimedes once 
said, "Give me a foot of ground outside the 
globe to stand upon, and I will make a lever 
that will lift the world." The invisible lever 
of gravitation, however, without any fulcrum 
or purchase, does lift the globe, and makes it 
waltz, too, with its blonde lunar partner, 
twelve hundred miles a minute to the music 



Starr Iking 



437 



of the sun, — ay, and heaves sun and systems 
and Milky Way in majestic cotillions on its 
ethereal floor. 

You grasp an iron ball, and call it hard; 
it is not the iron that is hard, but cohesive 
force that packs the particles of metal into 
intense sociability. Let the force abate, and 
the same metal becomes like mush ; let it dis- 
appear, and the ball is a heap of powder 
which your breath scatters in the air. If 
the cohesive energy in nature should get tired 
and unclench its grasp of matter, our earth 
would instantly become "a great slump"; 
so that which we tread on is not material 
substance, but matter braced up by a spirit- 
ual substance, for which it serves as the form 
and show. 

All the peculiarities of rock and glass, 
diamond, ice, and crystal are due to the work- 
ing of unseen military forces that employ 
themselves under ground, — in caverns, be- 
neath rivers, in mountain crypts, and through 
the coldest nights, drilling companies of atoms 
into crystalline battalions and squares, and 
every caprice of a fantastic order. 

When we turn to the vegetable kingdom 
is not the revelation still more wonderful? 
The forms which we see grow out of substances 
and are supported by forces which we do 
not see. The stuff out of which all vegetable 



Cobestve 
finery 



438 



Xtttle Sourness 



Subtflc 

jforce at 

TKlorfe 



appearances are made is reducible to oxygen, 
hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. How does 
it happen that this common stock is worked 
up in such different ways? Why is a lily 
woven out of it in one place and a dahlia in 
another, a grape-vine here, and a honey- 
suckle there, — the orange in Italy, the palm 
in Egypt, the olive in Greece, and the pine 
in Maine? Simply because a subtile force of 
a peculiar kind is at work wherever any 
vegetable structure adorns the ground, and 
takes to itself its favourite robe. We have 
outgrown the charming fancy of the Greeks 
that every tree has its dryad that lives in it, 
animates it, and dies when the tree withers. 
But we ought, for the truth's sake, to believe 
that a life-spirit inhabits every flower and 
shrub, and protects it against the prowling 
forces of destruction. Look at a full-sized 
oak, the rooted Leviathan of the fields. 
Judging by your senses and by the scales, 
you would say that the substance of the noble 
tree was its bulk of bark and bough and 
branch and leaves and sap, the cords of woody 
and moist matter that compose it and make 
it heavy. But really its substance is that 
which makes it an oak, that which weaves 
its bark and glues it to the stem, and wraps 
its rings of fresh wood around the trunk 
every year, and pushes out its boughs and 



Starr Hin$ 



439 



clothes its twigs with breathing leaves and 
sucks up nutriment from the soil continually, 
and makes the roots clench the ground with 
their fibrous fingers as a purchase against the 
storm, and at last holds aloft its tons of matter 
against the constant tug and wrath of gravi- 
tation, and swings its Briarean arms in tri- 
umph, in defiance of the gale. Were it not 
for this energetic essence that crouches in the 
acorn and stretches its limbs every year, 
there would be no oak ; the matter that clothes 
it would enjoy its stupid slumber; and when 
the forest monarch stands up in his sinewy 
lordliest pride, let the pervading life-power, 
and its vassal forces that weigh nothing at all, 
be annihilated, and the whole structure would 
wither in a second to inorganic dust. So 
every gigantic fact in nature is the index 
and vesture of a gigantic force. Everything 
which we call organisation that spots the 
landscape of nature is a revelation of secret 
force that has been wedded to matter, and 
if the spiritual powers that have thus domes- 
ticated themselves around us should be can- 
celled, the whole planet would be a huge 
Desert of Sahara, — a bleak sand-ball without 
shrub, grass-blade, or moss. 

As we rise in the scale of forces towards 
greater subtility the forces become more 
important and efficient. Water is more 



Energetic 
Essence 



44° 



Xtttle 5outneps 



Ibow 
Iftatuve 

vDHaters tbe 
THHorl& 



intimately concerned with life than rock, 
air higher in the rank of service than water, 
electric and magnetic agencies more powerful 
than air, and light, the most delicate, is the 
supreme magician of all. Just think how 
much expenditure of mechanical strength is 
necessary to water a city in the hot summer 
months. What pumping and tugging and 
wearisome trudging of horses with the great 
sprinklers over the tedious pavement! But 
see by what beautiful and noiseless force 
nature waters the world! The sun looks 
steadily on the ocean, and its beams lift 
lakes of water into the air, tossing it up 
thousands of feet with their delicate fingers 
and carefully picking every grain of salt 
from it before they let it go. No granite 
reservoirs are needed to hold in the Cochitu- 
ates and Crotons of the atmosphere, but the 
soft outlines of the clouds hem in the vast 
weight of the upper tides that are to cool 
the globe, and the winds harness themselves 
as steeds to the silken caldrons and hurry 
them along through space, while they dis- 
burse their rivers of moisture from their 
great height so lightly that seldom a violet 
is crushed by the rudeness with which the 
stream descends. 

Our conceptions of strength and endurance 
are so associated with visible implements 



Starr Iking 



441 



and mechanical arrangements that it is hard 
to divorce them, and yet the stream of 
electric fire that splits an ash is not a ponder- 
able thing, and the way in which the load- 
stone reaches the ten-pound weight and 
makes it jump is not perceptible. You would 
think the man had pretty good molars that 
should gnaw a spike like a stick of candy, 
but a bottle of innocent-looking hydrogen gas 
will chew up a piece of bar-iron as though it 
were some favourite Cavendish. 

The prominent lesson of science to men, 
therefore, is faith in the intangible and in- 
visible. Shall we talk of matter as the great 
reality of the world, the prominent substance? 
It is nothing but the battle-ground of terrific 
forces. Every particle of matter, the chem- 
ists tell us, is strained up to its last degree 
of endurance. The glistening bead of dew 
from which the daisy gently nurses its 
strength, and which a sunbeam may dissipate, 
is the globular compromise of antagonistic 
powers that would shake this building in 
their unchained rage. And so every atom 
of matter is the slave of imperious masters 
that never let it alone. It is nursed and 
caressed, next bandied about, and soon 
cuffed and kicked by its invisible overseers. 
Poor atoms! no abolition societies will ever 
free them from their bondage, no colonisation 



jfaftb 
in tbc 

flnvistble 



442 



Xittle Sournegs 



/Batter 

3Bount> to 

Spirit 



movement waft them to any physical Liberia. 
For every particle of matter is bound by 
eternal fealty to some spiritual lords, to be 
pinched by one and squeezed by another and 
torn asunder by a third: now to be painted 
by this and now blistered by that: now 
tormented with heat and soon chilled with 
cold; hurried from the Arctic Circle to sweat 
at the Equator, and then sent on an errand 
to the Southern Pole; forced through trans- 
migrations of fish, fowl, and flesh; and, if in 
some corner of creation the poor thing finds 
leisure to die, searched out and whipped to 
life again and kept in its constant round. 

Thus the stuff that we weigh, handle, and 
tread upon is only the show of invisible sub- 
stances, the facts over which subtile and 
mighty forces rule. 



443 



STARR KING was that kind of a plant 
which needs to be repotted in order to 
make it flower at its best. Events kept 
tugging to loosen his tendrils from his 
early environments. People who live on 
Boston Bay like to remain there. We 
have all heard of the good woman who 
died and went to heaven, and after a short 
sojourn there was asked how she liked 
it, and she sighed and said, "Ah, yes, 
it is very beautiful, but it is n't East 
Somerville! ,, 

Had Starr King consented to remain, in 
Boston he might have held his charge 
against the ravages of time, secreted a 
curate, taken on a becoming buffer of 
adipose, and glided by imperceptible de- 
grees on to the superannuated list. 

But early in that historic month of April, 
1 86 1, he set sail for California, having 



leaves 
JBoston 



444 



Xtttle Sourness 



[propbetic 
Vision 



accepted a call from the First Unitarian 
Church of San Francisco. This was his 
first trip to the Pacific coast, but New 
England people had preceded him, and, 
not being able to return, they wanted 
Boston to come to them. The journey 
was made by the way of Panama, without 
any special event. The pilot who met the 
ship outside of Golden Gate bore them 
the first news that Sumter had been fired 
upon, and the bombardment was at the 
time when the ship that bore Starr King 
was only a few miles from South Caro- 
lina's coast. 

With prophetic vision Starr King saw 
the struggle that was to come, and the 
words of Webster, uttered many years 
before, rushed to his lips : 



When my eyes shall be turned to behold 
for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not 
see him shining on the broken and dishon- 
oured fragments of a once glorious Union: 
on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; 
on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, 
it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their 
last feeble and lingering glance rather behold 
the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now 
known and honoured throughout the earth, 



Starr Iking 



445 



still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe 
erased nor polluted, nor a single star ob- 
scured, bearing for its motto no such mis- 
erable interrogatory as "What is all this 
worth ?" nor those other words of delusion 
and folly, "Liberty first and Union after- 
wards"; but everywhere, spread over all in 
characters of living light, blazing on all its 
ample folds, as they float over the sea and 
over the land, and in every wind under the 
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear 
to every true American heart — Liberty and 
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! 



tbattbe 
flDan? 



The landing was made on Saturday, 
and the following day Starr King spoke 
for the first time in California. An hour 
before the service was to begin the church 
was wedged tight. The preacher had 
much difficulty in making his way through 
the dense mass of humanity to reach the 
pulpit. "Is that the man?" went up 
the smothered exclamation, as Starr King 
reached the platform and faced his audi- 
ence. His slight, slender figure and boy- 
ish face were plainly a disappointment, but 
this was not to last. The preacher had 
prepared a sermon — such a sermon as he 



446 



Xittle Sourness 



California 
Buoience 



had given many times to well-dressed, 
orderly, and cultured Boston. 

And if this California audience was sur- 
prised, the speaker also was no less. The 
men to women were as seven to one. He 
saw before him a sea of bronzed and 
bearded faces, earnest, attentive, and 
hungry for truth. There were occasional 
marks of dissipation and the riot of the 
senses, softened by excess into penitence — 
whipped out and homesick. Here were 
miners in red flannel shirts, sailors, soldiers 
in uniform and soldiers of fortune. The 
preacher looked at the motley mass in 
a vain attempt to pick out his old friends 
from New England. The genteel, slightly 
blase quality of culture that leans back in 
its cushioned pew and courteously waits 
to be instructed was not there. These 
people did not lean back — they leaned 
forward, and with parted lips they listened 
for every word. There was no choir, and 
when "an old familiar hymn ,, was lined 
off by a volunteer who knew his business 
that audience arose and sang as though 
it would shake the rafters of heaven. 
Those who go down to the sea in ships 
sing; shepherds who tend their flocks by 



Start Iking 



447 



night sing ; men in the forest or those who 
follow the trackless plains sing. Congre- 
gational singing is most popular among 
those who live far apart — to get together 
and sing is a solace. Loneliness, separa- 
tion and heart-hunger all drive men into 
song. 

These men, many of them far from home, 
lifted up their voices, and the sounds 
surged through that church and echoed, 
surged again, and caught even the preacher 
in their winding waves. He started in 
to give one sermon and gave another. The 
audience, the time, the place, acted upon 
him. 

Oratory is essentially a pioneer product, 
a rustic article. Great sermons and great 
speeches are only given to people who have 
come from afar. 

Starr King forgot his manuscript and 
pulpit manners. His deep voice throbbed 
and pulsed with emotion, and the tensity 
of the times was upon him. Without 
once referring directly to Sumter, his 
address was a call to arms. 

He spoke for an hour, and when he sat 
down he knew that he had won. The 
next Sunday the place was again packed, 



B Call to 
Btms 



44 8 



SLittle Journeys 



©nl£ ©ne 
St&etotbe 
(Siuestfon 



and then followed urgent invitations that 
he should speak during the week in a 
larger hall. 

California was trembling in the balance, 
and orators were not wanting to give out 
the arguments of Calhoun. They showed 
that the right of secession was plainly 
provided for in the Constitution. Lin- 
coln's call for troops was coldly received, 
and from several San Francisco pulpits 
orthodox clergymen were expressing deep 
regret that the president was plunging 
the country into civil war. 

The heart of Starr King burned with 
shame — to him there was but one side to 
this question — the Union must be preserved. 

One man who had known King in 
Massachusetts wrote back home saying, 
"You would not know Starr King — he 
is not the orderly man of genteel culture 
you once had in Boston. He is a torrent 
of eloquence, so heartfelt, so convincing, 
so powerful, that when he speaks on Sun- 
day afternoon out on the sand-hills he 
excites the multitude into a whirlwind of 
applause, with a basso undertone of dis- 
sent which, however, seems to grow grad- 
ually less." 



Starr Ifcina 



449 



Loyalty to the Union was to him the one 
vital issue. His fight was not with indi- 
viduals — he made no personal issues. And 
in several joint debates his courteous treat- 
ment of his adversary won converts for 
his cause. He took pains to say that 
personally he had only friendship and 
pity for the individuals who upheld 
secession and slavery: "The man in the 
wrong needs friends as never before, since 
he has ceased to be his own. Do we 
blame a blind man whom we see rushing 
towards a precipice?" 

From that first Sunday he preached in 
San Francisco, his life was an ovation 
wherever he went. Wherever he was 
advertised to speak, multitudes were there 
to hang upon his words. He spoke in all 
the principal towns of California ; and often 
on the plains, in the mountains, or by the 
sea-shore, men would gather from hundreds 
of miles to hear him. 

He gave himself, and before he had 
been in California a year, the State was 
safe for the Union, and men and treasure 
were being sent to Lincoln's aid. The 
fame of Starr King reached the president, 
and he found time to write several letters 



Zo^altB to 
the "CUiton 



45° 



Xittle Journeys 



H %itc for 
tbe "Clnlon 



to the orator, thanking him for what he 
had done. It was in one of these letters 
that Lincoln wrote, "The only sermons 
I have ever been able to read and enjoy 
are those of John Murray," — a statement 
which some have attempted to smile 
away as showing the rail-splitter's astute 
diplomacy. 

Starr King gave his life to the cause. 
He as much died for the Union as though 
he had fallen stricken by flying lead upon 
the field. And he knew what he was doing, 
but in answer to his warning friends he 
said, " I have only one life to live and now 
is my time to spend it. For four years, 
lacking two months, he spoke and preached 
several times every week. All he made 
and all he was he freely gave. 

For that frail frame this life of intensity 
had but one end. 

-The emancipation proclamation had 
been issued, but Lee's surrender was yet 
to be. "May I live to see unity and 
peace for my country," was his prayer. 

Starr King died March 4, 1864, aged 
forty years. The closing words of his lec- 
ture on Socrates might well be applied to 
himself : 



Starr Iking 



451 



Down the river of life, by its Athenian 
banks, he had floated upon his raft of reason, 
serene in cloudy as in smiling weather. And 
now the night is rushing down, and he has 
reached the mouth of the stream, and the 
great ocean is before him, dim heaving in 
the dusk. But he betrays no fear. There 
is land ahead, he thought; eternal continents 
there are, that rise in constant light beyond 
the gloom. He trusted still in the raft his 
soul had built, and with a brave farewell to 
the true friends who stood by him on the 
shore, he put out into the darkness, a moral 
Columbus, trusting in his haven on the faith 
of an idea. 



Bowtt tbe 

•tftiver of 

life 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 



453 



455 



You know how the heart is subject to freshets; 
you know how the mother, always loving her child, 
yet seeing it in some new wile of affection, will catch 
it up and cover it with kisses and break forth in a 
rapture of loving. Such a kind of heart-glow fell 
from the Saviour upon that young man who said 
to him, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do 
that I may inherit eternal life?'' It is said, "Then 
Jesus, beholding him, loved him." 



f>eart 
jfreebets 



THE influence of Henry Ward Beecher 
upon his time was marked. And now 
the stream of his life is lost amid the ocean 
of our being. As a single drop of aniline 
in a barrel of water will tint the w T hole 
mass, so has the entire American mind been 
coloured through the existence of this one 
glowing personality. He placed a new in- 
terpretation on religion, and we are differ- 
ent people because he lived. He was not 
constructive, not administrative. He 
wrote much, but as literature his work 
has small claim on immortality. He was 
an orator, and the business of the orator 
is to inspire other men to think and act 
for themselves. 

Orators live but in memory. Their de- 
stiny is to be the sweet elusive fragrance of 
oblivion — the thyme and mignonette of 
things that were. 



457 



Aarfteb 
Influence 



458 



Xittle Sourness 



Infcfscre* 

tion Set to 

ADusic 



The limitations in the all-round man 
are by-products which are used by destiny 
in the making of orators. The welling 
emotions, the vivid imagination, the for- 
getfulness of self, the abandon to feeling — 
all these things in Wall Street are spurious 
coin. No prudent man was ever an orator 
— no cautious man ever made a multitude 
change its mind, when it had vowed it 
would not. Oratory is indiscretion set to 
music. 

The great orator is great on account of 
his weakness as well as on account of his 
strength. So why should we expect the 
orator to be the impeccable man of perfect 
parts? 

These essays attempt to give the man 
— they are neither a vindication nor an 
apology. 

Edmund Gosse has recently said some- 
thing so wise and to the point on the 
subject of biography that I cannot resist 
the temptation to quote him : 

If the reader will but bear with me so far 
as to endure the thesis that the first theo- 
retical object of the biographer should be 
indiscretion, not discretion, I will concede 
almost everything practical to delicacy. 



15 



Infttecre* 
music 



ournepi 



ad man 



,vhen it had s 

Henry Ward Beecher 
Frcte a photograph by Sarony, New York 



thing so wi 



.X^Z^^-L ^£ 



some- 



IbentE KHar& Beecbet 



459 



But this must be granted to me: that the 
aim of all portraiture ought to be the em- 
phasising of what makes the man different 
from, not like, other men. The widow almost 
always desires that her deceased hero should 
be represented as exactly like all other re- 
spectable men, only a little grander, a little 
more glorified. She hates, as only a bad 
biographer can hate, the telling of the truth 
with respect to those faults and foibles which 
made the light and shade of his character. 
This, it appears, was the primitive view 
of biography. The mass of mediaeval me- 
morials was of the "expanded tract" order: 
it was mainly composed of lives of the saints, 
tractates in which the possible and the im- 
possible were mingled in inextricable dis- 
order, but where every word was intended 
directly for edification. Here the biographer 
was a moralist whose hold upon exact truth 
of statement was very loose indeed, but who 
was determined that every word he wrote 
should strengthen his readers in the faith. 
Nor is this generation of biographers dead 
to-day. Half the lives of the great and good 
men which are published in England and 
America are expanded tracts. Let the bi- 
ographer be tactful, but do not let him be cow- 
ardly: let him cultivate delicacy, but avoid 
its ridiculous parody, prudery. 



primitive 

Wiew of 
JBiograpbv. 



460 



Xtttle Journeys 



Custom in 
:Biograpb? 



And I also quote this from James 
Anthony Froude : 

The usual custom in biography is to begin 
with the brightest side and to leave the faults 
to be discovered afterwards. It is dishonest 
and it does not answer. Of all literary sins, 
Carlyle himself detested most a false bio- 
graphy. Faults frankly acknowledged are 
frankly forgiven. Faults concealed work 
always like poison. Burns's offences were 
made no secret of. They are now forgotten, 
and Burns stands without a shadow on him, 
the idol of his countrymen. 

Byron's diary was destroyed, and he re- 
mains and will remain with a stain of sus- 
picion about him, which revives and will 
revive, and will never be wholly obliterated. 
"The truth shall make you free " in biography 
as in everything. Falsehood and conceal- 
ment are a great man's worst enemies. 



II 



461 



HENRY WARD BEECHER was born 
at Litchfield, Conn., June 23, 18 13. 
He was the eighth child of Lyman and 
Roxana Foote Beecher. Like Lincoln and 
various other great men, Beecher had two 
mothers : the one who gave him birth and 
the one who cared for him as he grew up. 
Beecher used to take with him on his 
travels an old daguerreotype of his real 
mother, and in the cover of the case, 
beneath the glass, was a lock of her hair — 
fair in colour, and bright as if touched by 
the kiss of the summer sun. Often he 
would take this picture out and apos- 
trophise it: just as he would the uncut 
gems that he always carried in his pockets. 
"My first mother," he used to call her; 
and to him she stood as a sort of deity. 
1 'My first mother stands to me for love; 
my second mother for discipline; my 



flDotbers 



462 



Xittle 3ourneps 



SScecbcr's 
Ubeme 



father for justice," he once said to 
Halliday. 

I am not sure that Beecher had a well 
defined idea of either discipline or justice, 
but love to him was a very vivid and per- 
sonal reality. He knew what it meant — 
infinite forgiveness, a lifelong, yearning 
tenderness, a something that suffereth 
long and is kind. This he preached for 
fifty years, and he preached little else. 
Lyman Beecher proclaimed the justice of 
God; Henry Ward Beecher told of His 
love. Lyman Beecher was a logician, 
but Henry Ward was a lover. There is a 
task on hand for the man who attempts 
to prove that nature is kind, or that God 
is love. Perhaps man himself, with all 
his imperfections, gives us the best example 
of love that the universe has to offer. 
In preaching the love of God, Henry Ward 
Beecher revealed his own; for oratory, 
like literature, is only a confession. 

"My first mother is always pleading 
for me — she reaches out her arms to me — 
her delicate, long, tapering fingers stroke 
my hair — I hear her voice, gentle and low! " 
Do you say this is the language of o'er- 
wrought emotion ? I say to you it is simply 



•foenrs TOarb JBeecber 



463 



the language of love. This mother, dead 
and turned to dust, who passed out when 
the boy was scarce three years old, stood 
to him for the ideal. Love, anyway, is 
a matter of the imagination, and he who 
cannot imagine cannot love, and love is 
from within. The lover clothes the be- 
loved in the garments of his fancy, and 
woe to him if he ever loses the power to 
imagine. 

Have you not often noticed how the man 
or woman whose mother died before a time 
the child could recall, and whose memory 
clusters around a faded picture and a lock 
of hair — how this person is thrice blessed 
in that the ideal is always a shelter when 
the real palls? Love is a refuge and a 
defence. The law of compensation is 
kind: Lincoln lived, until the day of his 
death, bathed in the love of Nancy Hanks, 
that mother, worn, yellow, and sad, who 
gave him birth, and yet whom he had 
never known. No child ever really lost its 
mother — nothing is ever lost. Men are 
only grown-up children, and the longing 
to be mothered is not effaced by the pass- 
ing years. The type is well shown in the 
life of Meissonier, whose father died in 



B. fat>et> 
picture 



464 



Xtttle 3ourness 



his childhood, but she was near him to 
the last. In his journal he wrote this: "It 
is the morning of my seventieth birthday. 
What a long time to look back upon! 
This morning, at the hour my mother gave 
me birth, I wished my first thoughts to 
be of her. Dear Mother, how often have 
the tears risen at the remembrance of you! 
It was your absence — my longing for you — 
that made you so dear to me. The love 
of my heart goes out to you! Do you 
hear me, Mother, crying and calling for 
you? How sweet it must be to have a 
mother!" 



Ill 



4 6 5 



ONE might suppose that a childless 
woman suddenly presented by fate 
with an exacting husband and a brood of 
nine would soon be a candidate for nervous 
prostration; but Sarah Porter Beecher 
rose to the level of events and looked after 
her household with diligence and a con- 
scientious heart. Little Henry Ward was 
four years old and wore a red flannel dress 
outgrown by one of the girls. He was 
chubby, with a full-moon face, and yellow 
curls, which were so much trouble to 
take care of that they were soon cut off, 
after he had set the example of cutting 
off two himself. He talked as though 
his mouth was full of hot mush. If sent 
to a neighbour on an errand, he usually 
forgot what he was sent for, or else 
explained matters in such a way that 
he brought back the wrong thing. His 



B Gbubbg 
JBos 



466 Xxttle Sourness 



sister mother meant to be kind; her patience 
was splendid ; and one s heart goes out 
to her in sympathy when we think of her 
faithful efforts to teach the lesser cate- 
chism to this baby savage who much 
preferred to make mud pies. 

Little Henry Ward had a third mother 
who did him much gentle benefit, and 
that was his sister Harriet, two years 
his senior. These little child-mothers who 
take care of the younger members of the 
family deserve special seats in paradise. 
Harriet taught little Henry Ward to talk 
plainly, to add four and four, and to look 
solemn when he did not feel so — and thus 
escape the strap behind the kitchen door. 
His bringing-up was of the uncaressing, 
let-alone kind. 

Lyman Beecher was a deal better than 
his religion; for his religion, like that of 
most people, was an inheritance, not an 
evolution. Piety settled down upon the 
household like a pall every Saturday at 
sundown; and the lessons taught were 
largely from the Old Testament. 

These big, bustling, strenuous house- 
holds are pretty good life-drill for the 
members. The children are taught self- 



fbenrs Mart JSeecber 



467 



reliance, to do without each other, to do 
for others, and the older members educate 
the younger ones. It is a great thing 
to leave children alone. Henry Ward 
Beecher has intimated in various places 
in his books how the whole Beecher brood 
loved their father, yet as precaution 
against misunderstanding they made the 
sudden sneak and quick side-step when- 
ever they saw him coming. 

Village life with a fair degree of pro- 
sperity, but not too much, is an education 
in itself. The knowledge gained is not 
always classic, nor even polite, but it is all 
a part of the great seething game of life. 
Henry Ward Beecher was not an educated 
man in the usual sense of the word. At 
school he carved his desk, made faces at 
the girls, and kept the place in a turmoil 
generally : doing the wrong thing, just like 
many another bumpkin. At home he 
carried in the wood, picked up chips, 
worked in the garden in summer, and 
shovelled out the walks in winter. He 
knew when the dish water was worth 
saving to mix up with meal for chickens, 
and when it should be put on the asparagus 
bed or the rose bushes. He could make a 



(PiCRCbcUP 

Tfcnowle&ge 



468 



Xittle Sourness 



©ff to 
Bmberst 



lye-leach, knew that it was lucky to set 
hens on thirteen eggs, realised that hens' 
eggs hatched in three weeks, and ducks' 
in four. He knew when the berries rip- 
ened, where the crows nested, and could 
find the bee-trees by watching the flight 
of the bees after they had gotten their fill 
on the basswood blossoms. He knew all 
the birds that sang in the branches — 
could tell what birds migrated and what 
not — was acquainted with the flowers 
and weeds and fungi — knew where the 
rabbits burrowed — could pick the milk- 
weed that would cure warts, and tell the 
points of the compass by examining the 
bark of the trees. He was on familiar 
terms with all the ragamuffins in the 
village, and regarded the man who kept 
the livery stable as the wisest person in 
New England, and the stage-driver as the 
wittiest. 

Lyman Beecher was a graduate of Yale, 
and Henry Ward would have been, had 
he been able to pass the preparatory 
examinations. But he could n't, and 
finally he was bundled off to Amherst, 
very much as we now send boys to a 
business college when they get plucked 



f>enrs IKHarfc Beecber 



469 



at the high school. But it matters little — 
give the boys time — some of them ripen 
slowly, and others there be who know 
more at sixteen than they will ever know 
again, like street gamins with the wit of 
debauchees, rareripes at ten, and rotten 
at the core. "Delay adolescence," wrote 
Dr. Charcot to an anxious mother — "de- 
lay adolescence, and you bank energy un- 
til it is needed. If your boy is stupid at 
fourteen, thank God! Dulness is a ful- 
crum and your son is getting ready to put 
a lever under the world." 

At Amherst, Henry Ward stood well at 
the foot of his class. He read everything 
excepting what was in the curriculum, and 
never allowed his studies to interfere with 
his college course. He revelled in the de- 
bating societies, and was always ready to 
thrash out any subject in wordy warfare 
against all comers. His temper was splen- 
did, his good -nature sublime. If an op- 
ponent got the best of him he enjoyed it 
as much as the audience — he could wait 
his turn. The man who can laugh at him- 
self, and who is not anxious to have the last 
word is right in the suburbs of greatness. 

However, the Beechers all had a deal 



mttbe 

jf 00 1 of t>ts 
Class 



47° 



Xtttle 3ourness 



jfatbet ant> 
Son 



of positivism in their characters. Thomas 
K. Beecher of Elmira, in 1856, declared he 
would not shave until John C. Fremont 
was elected president. It is needless to add 
that he wore whiskers the rest of his life. 
When Henry Ward was nineteen his 
father received a call to become President 
of Lane Theological Seminary at Cincin- 
nati, and Henry Ward accompanied him 
as assistant. The stalwart old father had 
now come to recognise the worth of his 
son, and for the first time parental author- 
ity was waived and they were companions. 
They were very much alike — exuberant 
health, energy plus, faith and hope to 
spare. And Henry Ward now saw that 
there was a gentle, tender, and yearning 
side to his father's nature, into which 
the world only caiight glimpses. Lyman 
Beecher was not free — he was bound by a 
hagiograph riveted upon his soul; and so 
to a degree his whole nature was cramped 
and tortured in his struggles between the 
"natural man" and the "spiritual." The 
son was taught by antithesis, and inwardly 
vowed he would be free. The one word 
that looms large in the life of Beecher 
is LIBERTY. 



47i 



IV 

HENRY WARD BEECHER died aged gm 
seventy-four, having preached since Cbar e 
he was twenty-three. During that time 
he was pastor of three churches — two 
years at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, six years 
in Indianapolis, and forty-three years in 
Brooklyn. It was in 1837 that he be- 
came pastor to the Congregational Church 
at Lawrenceburg. This town was then a 
rival of Cincinnati. It had six churches — 
several more than were absolutely needed. 
The Baptists were strong, the Presbyterians 
were strenuous, the Episcopalians were 
exclusive, while the Congregationalists 
were at ebb-tide through the rascality of 
a preacher who had recently decamped 
and thrown a blanket of disgrace over 
the whole denomination for ten miles up 
the creek. Thus were things when Henry 
Ward Beecher assumed his first charge. 



472 



Xittle Sourness 



Ht laws 
renceburg 



The membership of the church was made 
up of nineteen women and one man. The 
new pastor was sexton as well as preacher 
— he swept out, rang the bell, lighted the 
candles, and locked up after service. 

Beecher remained in Lawrenceburg two 
years. The membership had increased to 
a hundred and six men and seventy women, 
I suppose it will not be denied as an actual 
fact that women bolster the steeples so 
that they stay on the churches. From 
the time the women held the rope and let 
St. Paul down in safety from the wall in 
a basket, women have maintained the 
faith. But Beecher was a man's preacher 
from first to last. He was a bold, manly 
man, making his appeal to men. 

Two years at Lawrenceburg and he 
moved to Indianapolis, the capital of the 
State, his reputation having been carried 
thither by the member from Posey County, 
who incautiously boasted that his dees- 
trick had the most powerful preacher of 
any town on the Ohio River. 

At Indianapolis Beecher was a success 
at once. He entered into the affairs of 
the people with an ease and a good-nature 
that won the hearts of this semi-pioneer 



1benr£ WLavb JBeecber 



473 



population. His Lectures to Young Men 
delivered Sunday evenings to packed 
houses, still have a sale. This bringing 
religion down from the lofty heights of 
theology and making it a matter of every- 
day life, was eminently Beecheresque. 
And the reason it was a success was because 
it fitted the needs of the people. Beecher 
expressed what the people were thinking. 
Mankind clings to the creed; we will not 
burn our bridges — we want the religion of 
our mothers, yet we crave the simple 
common-sense we can comprehend as well 
as the superstition we can not. Beecher's 
task was to rationalise orthodoxy so as 
to make it palatable to thinking minds. 
''I can't ride two horses at one time," 
once said Robert Ingersoll to Beecher, 
"but possibly I '11 be able to yet, for to- 
morrow I am going to hear you preach." 
Then it was that Beecher offered to write 
Ingersoll's epitaph, which he proceeded to 
do by scribbling two words on the back 
of an envelope, thus: ROBERT BURNS. 
But these men understood and had a 
thorough respect for each other. Once at 
a mass-meeting at Cooper Union, Beecher 
introduced Ingersoll as the " first, f Ore- 



Success (n 

1InMan= 

apolte 



474 



Xittle Sourness 



at 

pl^moutb 
Cbnrcb 



most and most gifted of all living orators." 
And Ingersoll, not to be outdone, re- 
ferred in his speech to Beecher as the 
"one orthodox clergyman in the world 
who has eliminated hell from his creed 
and put the devil out of church, and still 
stands in his pulpit." 

Six years at Indianapolis put Beecher in 
command of his armament. And Brook- 
lyn, seeking a man of power, called him 
thither. His first sermon in Plymouth 
Church outlined his course — and the prin- 
ciples then laid down he was to preach 
for fifty years — the love of God; the 
life of Christ, not as a sacrifice, but as an 
example — our elder brother ; and liberty — 
liberty to think, to express, to act, to 
become. 

It would have been worth going miles to 
see this man as he appeared at Plymouth 
Church those first years of his ministry. 
Such a specimen of mental, spiritual, and 
physical manhood nature produces only 
once in a century. Imagine a man of 
thirty-five, when manhood had not yet 
left youth behind, height five feet ten, 
weight one hundred and eighty, a body 
like that of a Greek god, and a mind poised, 



Ibenrs WLatb JSeecber 



475 



sure, serene, with a fund of good-nature 
that could not be overdrawn ; a face cleanly 
shaven; a wealth of blonde hair falling to 
his broad shoulders ; eyes of infinite blue, — 
eyes like the eyes of Christ when he gazed 
upon the penitent thief on the cross, or 
eyes that flash fire, changing their colour 
with the mood of the man; a radiant, 
happy man, the cheeriest, sunniest nature 
that ever dwelt in human body, with a 
sympathy that went out to everybody and 
everything — children, animals, the old, 
the feeble, the fallen ; a man too big to be 
jealous, too noble to quibble, a man so 
manly that he would accept guilt rather 
than impute it to another. If he had been 
possessed of less love he would have been 
a stronger man. The generous nature 
lies open and unprotected — through its 
guilelessness it allows concrete rascality 
to come close enough to strike it. "One 
reason why Beecher had so many enemies 
was because he bestowed so many bene- 
fits/ ' said Rufus Choate. 

Talmage did not discover himself until 
he was forty-six; Beecher was Beecher at 
thirty-five. He was as great then as 
he ever was ; it was too much to ask that 



personal 
Gbarms 



476 



Xittie Sourness 



five 



he should evolve into something more — 
Nature has to distribute her gifts. Had 
Beecher grown after his thirty-fifth year, 
as he grew from twenty -five to thirty- 
five, he would have been a Colossus that 
would have disturbed the equilibrium 
of the thinking world, and created revolu- 
tion instead of evolution. The opposition 
toward great men is right and natural — • 
it is a part of nature's plan to hold the 
balance true, "lest ye become as gods!" 



477 



T TRAVELLED with Major James B. 
1 Pond one lecture season, and during 
that time heard only two themes discussed. 
John Brown and Henry Ward Beecher. 
These were his gods . Pond fought with John 
Brown in Kansas, shoulder to shoulder, 
and it was only through an accident that 
he was not with Brown at Harper's Ferry, 
in which case his soul would have gone 
marching on with that of Old John Brown. 
From i860 to 1866, Pond belonged to the 
army, and was stationed in western Mis- 
souri, where there was no commissariat, 
where they took no prisoners, and where 
men lived, like Jesse James, who never 
knew the war was over. Pond had so 
many notches cut on the butt of his pistol 
that he had ceased to count them. He 
was big, brusque, quibbling, insulting, 
dictatorial, painstaking, considerate, and 



AD a jo r 
fltonb 



478 



%ittle Sourness 



Eyaeper= 
attng anb 
lovable 



kind. He was the most exasperating and 
lovable man I ever knew. He left a trail 
of enemies wherever he travelled, and the 
irony of fate is shown in that he was 
allowed to die peacefully in his bed. 

I cut my relationship with him because 
I did not care to be pained by seeing his 
form dangling from the cross-beam of a 
telegraph pole. When I lectured at Wash- 
ington a policeman appeared at the box- 
office and demanded the amusement licence 
fee of five dollars. "Your authority ?" 
roared Pond. And, the policeman not 
being able to explain, Pond kicked him 
down the stairway, and kept his club as a 
souvenir. We got out on the midnight 
train before warrants could be served. 

He would often push me into the first 
carriage when we arrived at a town, and 
sometimes the driver would say, "This is 
a private carriage," or, "This carriage is 
engaged," and Pond would reply, " What 's 
that to me ? drive us to the hotel — you 
evidently don't know whom you are 
talking to!" And so imperious w T as his 
manner that his orders were usually 
obeyed. Arriving at the hotel, he would 
hand out double fare. It was his rule to 



ft>enr£ TKIlarfc JBeecber 



479 



pay too much or too little. Yet as a 
manager he was perfection — he knew the 
trains to a minute, and always knew, too, 
what to do if we missed the first train, or 
if the train was late. At the hall he saw 
that every detail was provided for. If 
the place was too hot, or too cold, some- 
body got thoroughly blamed. If the 
ventilation was bad, and he could not get 
the windows open, he would break them 
out. If you questioned his balance sheet 
he would the next day flash up an expense 
account that looked like a plumber's bill 
and give you fifty cents as your share of 
the spoils. At hotels he always got a room 
with two beds, if possible. I was his 
prisoner; he was despotically kind — he 
regulated my hours of sleep, my meals, 
my exercise. He would throw intruding 
visitors down stairs as average men shoo 
chickens or scare cats. He was a bundle 
of profanity and unrest until after the 
lecture. Then we would go to our room, 
and he would talk like a windmill. He 
would crawl into his bed and I into 
mine and then he would continue telling 
Beecher stories half the night, comparing 
me with Beecher to my great disadvantage. 



perfect 
ADanager 



480 



SLittle Sourness 



Iponb anb 
3Bcecber 



A dozen times I have heard him tell how 
Beecher would say, "Pond, never consult 
me about plans or explain details — if you 
do, our friendship ceases." Beecher was 
glad to leave every detail of travel to Pond, 
and Pond delighted in assuming sole 
charge. Beecher never audited an ac- 
count — he just took what Pond gave him 
and said nothing. In this Beecher was 
very wise — he managed Pond and Pond 
never knew it. Pond had a pride in pay- 
ing Beecher as much as possible, and found 
gratification in giving the money to 
Beecher instead of keeping it. He was 
immensely proud of his charge and grew 
to have an idolatrous regard for Beecher. 
Pond's brusque ways amused Beecher, 
and the Ossawatomie experience made him 
a sort of hero in Beecher's eyes, Beecher 
took Pond at his true value, regarded his 
wrath as a child's tantrum, and let him 
do most of the talking as well as the busi- 
ness. And Beecher's great, welling heart 
touched a side of Pond's nature that few 
knew existed at all — a side that he masked 
with harshness; for, in spite of his per- 
versity, Pond had his virtues — he was 
simple as a child, and so ingenuous that 



Ibenrs TKlarfc Beecber 



481 



deception with him was impossible. He 
could not tell a lie so you would not know 
it. 

He served Beecher with dog-like loyalty, 
and an honesty beyond suspicion. They 
were associated fourteen years, travelled 
together over three hundred thousand 
miles, and Pond paid to Beecher two 
hundred and forty thousand dollars. 
31 



Xosalts to 
3Beecbec 



482 



VI 



Jfirst 

Bcquaint= 

ance 



BEECHER and Tilton became acquaint- 
ed about the year i860. Beecher was 
at that time forty-seven years old ; Tilton 
was twenty-five. The influence of the 
older man over the younger was very 
marked. Tilton became one of the most 
zealous workers in Plymouth Church: 
he attended every service, took part in 
the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, 
helped take up the collection, and was a 
constant recruiting force. Tilton was a 
reporter, and later an editorial writer on 
different New York and Brooklyn dailies. 
Beecher's Sunday sermon supplied the 
cue for his next day's leader. And be 
it said to his honour, he usually gave due 
credit, and in various ways helped the 
cause of Plymouth Church by booming the 
reputation of its pastor. 

Tilton was possessed of a deal of intel- 



Tbcnvy WLavb JScecber 



483 



lectual nervous force. His mind was 
receptive, active, versatile. His all-round 
newspaper experience had given him an 
education, and he could express himself 
acceptably on any theme. He wrote 
children's stories, threw off poetry in idle 
hours, penned essays, skimmed the surface 
of philosophy, and dived occasionally into 
theology. But his theology and his phi- 
losophy were strictly the goods put out by 
Beecher, distilled through the Tilton cos- 
mos. He occasionally made addresses at 
social gatherings, and evolved into an ora- 
tor whose reputation extended to Staten 
Island. 

Beecher' s big, boyish heart went out 
to this bright and intelligent young man — 
they were much in each other's company- 
People said they looked alike; although 
one was tall and slender and the other was 
inclined to be stout. Beecher wore his 
hair long, and now Tilton wore his long, 
too. Beecher affected a wide-brimmed 
slouch hat; Tilton wore one of similar 
style, with brim a trifle wider. Beecher 
wore a large blue cloak; Tilton wrapped 
himself round with a cloak one shade 
more ultramarine than Beecher's. 



Uilton 

Bpes 

3Beecber 



4 8 4 



Xittle Sourness 



Bgreeable 
Company 



Tilton's wife was very much like Til ton : 
both were intellectual, nervous, artistic. 
They were so much alike that they give us 
a hint of what a hell this world would be 
if all mankind were made in one mould. 
But there was this difference between 
them: Mrs. Tilton was proud, while Til ton 
was vain. They were only civil toward 
each other because they had vowed they 
would be. They did not throw crockery, 
because to do so would have been bad 
form. 

Beecher was a great joker — hilarious, 
laughing, and both witty and humorous. 
I was going to say he was wise, but that 
is not the word. Tilton lacked wit — he 
never bubbled excepting as a matter of 
duty. Both Mr. and Mrs. Tilton enjoyed 
the society of Beecher, for, besides being 
a great intellectual force, his presence was 
an antiseptic against jaundice and intro- 
spection. And Beecher loved them both, 
because they loved him, and because he 
loved everybody. They supplied him a 
foil for his wit, a receptacle for his over- 
flow of spirit, a flint on which to strike his 
steel. Mrs. Tilton admired Beecher a lit- 
tle more than her husband did — she was 



Ifoenrp Mart) Beecber 



485 



a woman. Tilton was glad that his wife 
liked Beecher — it brought Beecher to his 
house; and if Beecher admired Tilton's 
wife — why, was not this a proof that Til- 
ton and Beecher were alike ? I guess so. 
Mrs. Tilton was musical, artistic, keen of 
brain, emotional, with all a fine-fibred 
woman's longings, hopes, and ideals. 

So matters went drifting on the tide, 
and the years went by as the years will. 

Mrs. Tilton became a semi-invalid, the 
kind that doctors now treat with hypo- 
phosphites, beef-iron-and-wine, cod-liver 
oil, and massage by the right attendant. 
They call it congenital ansemia — a scarcity 
of the red corpuscle. 

vSome doctors there be who do not yet 
know that the emotions control the 
secretions, and a perfect circulation is a 
matter of mind. Anyway, what can the 
poor Galenite do in a case like this — his 
pills are powerless, his potions inane! 
Tilton knew that his wife loved Beecher, 
and he also fully realised that in this she 
was only carrying out a little of the 
doctrine of freedom that he taught, and 
that he claimed for himself. For a time 
Tilton was beautifully magnanimous. Oc- 



B Semi* 
flnvalft 



486 



Xtttle Journeys 



Iftapfb 



casionally Mrs. Tilton had spells of com- 
plete prostration, when she thought she 
was going to die. At such times her 
husband would send for Beecher to come 
and administer extreme unction. 

Instead of dying, the woman would get 
well. 

After one such attack, Tilton taunted 
his wife with her quick recovery. It was 
a taunt that pulled tight on the corners of 
his mouth; it was lacking in playfulness. 
Beecher was present at the bedside of 
the propped-up invalid. They turned on 
Tilton, did these two, and flayed him with 
their agile wit and ready tongues. Tilton 
protested they were wrong — he was not 
jealous — the idea! 

But that afternoon he had his hair cut, 
and he discarded the slouch hat for one 
with a stiff brim. 

It took six months for his hair to grow 
to a length sufficient to indicate genius. 



VII 



4 8 7 



BEECHER'S great heart was wrung and 
stung by the tangle of events in which 
he finally found himself plunged. That his 
love for Mrs. Tilton was great there is no 
doubt, and for the wife with whom he 
had lived for over a score of years he had 
a profound pity and regard. She had 
not grown with him. Had she remained 
in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and married 
a well-to-do grocer, all for her would have 
been well. Beecher belonged to the world, 
and this his wife never knew: she thought 
she owned him. To interest her and to 
make her shine before the world, certain 
literary productions were put out with 
her name as author, on request of Robert 
Bonner, but all this was a pathetic at- 
tempt by her husband to conceal the truth 
of her mediocrity. She spied upon him, 



TEangle of 
Events 



Xittle Sourness 



Are. 
SSeecber 



watched his mail, turned his pockets, and 
did all the things no wife should do, lest 
perchance she be punished by finding her 
suspicions true. Wives and husbands 
must live by faith. The wife who is 
miserable until she makes her husband 
"confess all" is never happy afterwards. 
Beecher could not pour out his soul to his 
wife — he had to watch her mood and dole 
out to her the platitudes she could digest 
— never with her did he reach abandon. 
But the wife strove to do her duty — she 
was a good housekeeper, economical and 
industrious, and her very virtues proved 
a source of exasperation to her husband 
— he could not hate her. 

It was Mrs. Beecher who first discovered 
the relationship existing between her 
husband and Mrs. Tilton. She accused 
her husband, and he made no denial — he 
offered her her liberty. But this she did 
not want. Beecher promised to break 
with Mrs. Tilton. They parted — parted 
forever in sweet sorrow. 

And the next week they met again. 

The greater the man before the public, 
the more he outpours himself, the more 
his need for mothering in the quiet of his 



IbenrE TOarb Beecber 



489 



home. All things are equalised and, with 
the strength of the sublime spiritual nature 
goes the weakness of a child. Beecher 
was an undeveloped boy to the day of his 
death. 

Beecher at one time had a great desire 
to stand square before the world. Major 
Pond, on Beecher's request, went to Mrs. 
Beecher and begged her to sue for a di- 
vorce. At the same time Tilton was 
asked to secure a divorce from his wife. 
When all parties were free, Beecher would 
marry Mrs. Tilton and face the world 
an honest man — nothing to hide — right 
out under the clear blue sky, blown upon 
by the free winds of heaven ! 

This was his heart's desire. 

But all negotiations failed. Mrs. Beecher 
would not give up her husband, and Tilton 
was too intent on revenge — and cash — 
to even consider the matter. Then came 
the crash. 



ffiefore tbe 

Crasb 



49° 



VIII 



Uilton Sues 
JSeecbec 



TILTON sued Beecher for one hundred 
thousand dollars damages for alienat- 
ing his wife's affection. It took five months 
to try the case. The best legal talent in 
the land was engaged. The jury disa- 
greed and the case was not tried again. 

Had Mrs. Beecher applied for a divorce 
on statutory grounds, no court would have 
denied her prayer. In actions for di- 
vorce guilt does not have to be proved— 
it is assumed. But when one man sues 
another for money damages, the rulings 
are drawn finer and matters must be 
proved. That is where Tilton failed in 
his lawsuit. 

At the trial, Beecher perjured himself 
like a gentleman to protect Mrs. Tilton; 
Mrs. Tilton waived the truth for Beecher's 
benefit; and Mrs. Beecher swore black 



f>ent£ Mart Beecber 



491 



was white because she did not want to 
lose her husband. Such a precious trio 
of prevaricators is very seldom seen in a 
court-room, a place where liars much do 
congregate. Judge and jury knew they 
lied and respected them the more; for 
down in the hearts of all men is a feeling 
that the love affairs of a man and woman 
are sacred themes, and a bulwark of lies 
to protect the holy of holies is ever 
justifiable. 

Tilton was the one person who told the 
truth, and he was universally execrated 
for it. Love does not leave a person with- 
out reason. And there is something in the 
thought of money as payment to' a man 
for a woman's love that is against nature. 

Tilton lost the woman's love, and he 
would balm his lacerated heart with lu- 
cre! Money? God help us — a man should 
earn money. We sometimes hear of 
men who subsist on women's shame, but 
what shall we say of a man who would 
turn parasite and live in luxury on a 
woman's love — and this woman by him 
now spurned and scorned! The faults 
and frailties of men and women caught 
in the swirl of circumstances are not 



Ube Ztial 



492 



Xittle Sourness 



without excuse, but the cold plottings to 
punish them and the desire to thrive by 
their faults are hideous. 

The worst about a double life is not its 
immorality — it is that the relationship 
makes a man a liar. The universe is not 
planned for duplicity — all the energy we 
have is needed in our business, and he who 
starts out on the pathway of untruth 
finds himself treading upon brambles and 
nettles which close behind him and make 
return impossible. The further he goes 
the worse the jungle of poison-oak and 
ivy, which at last circle him round in 
strangling embrace. He who escapes the 
clutch of a life of falsehood is as one in a 
-million. Victor Hugo has pictured the 
situation when he tells of the man whose 
feet are caught in the bed of birdlime. 
He attempts to jump out, but only sinks 
deeper — he flounders, calls for help, and 
puts forth all his strength. He is up to 
his knees — to his hips — his waist — his 
neck, and at last only hands are seen 
reaching up in mute appeal to heaven. 
But the heavens are as brass, and soon 
where there was once a man is only the 
dumb indifference of nature. 



1benr£ Mart) Bccchcv 



493 



The only safe course is the open road 
of truth. Lies, once begun, pile up; and 
lies require lies to bolster them. 

Mrs. Tilton had made a written con- 
fession to her husband, but this she re- 
pudiated in court, declaring it was given 
"in terrorem. " Now she had only words 
of praise and vindication for Beecher. 

Mrs. Beecher sat by her husband's side 
all through the long trial. For a man to 
leave the woman with whom he has lived 
a lifetime, and who is the mother of his 
children, is out of the question. What 
if she does lack intellect and spirituality! 
He has endured her; aye! he has even been 
happy w r ith her at times ; the relationship 
has been endurable — 't were imbecility, 
and death for both, to break it. 

Beecher and his wife would stand 
together. 

Mrs. Tilton's lips had been sanctified 
by love, and were sealed, though her 
heart did break. 

The jury stood nine for Beecher and 
three against. Major Pond, the astute, 
construed this into a vindication — Beecher 
was not guilty! 

The first lecture after the trial was 



3urs 
Disagree 



494 



Xtttle Journeys 



Bt 
Blejan&rfa 



given at Alexandria Bay. Pond had sold 
out for five hundred dollars. Beecher 
said it was rank robbery — no one would 
be there. The lecture was to be in the 
grove at three o'clock in the afternoon. 
In the forenoon, boats were seen coming 
from east and west and north — excursion 
boats laden with pilgrims; sail-boats, 
row-boats, skiffs, and even birch-bark ca- 
noes bearing red-men. The people came 
also in carts and waggons, and on horseback. 
An audience of five thousand confronted 
the lecturer. The man who had planned 
the affair had banked on his knowledge 
of humanity — the people wanted to see 
and hear the individual who had been 
whipped naked at the cart's tail, and who 
still lived to face the world smilingly, 
bravely, undauntedly. 

Major Pond was paid the five hundred 
dollars as agreed. The enterprise had net- 
ted its manager over a thousand dollars — 
he was a rich man anyway — things had 
turned out as he had prophesied, and in 
the exuberance of his success he that 
night handed Mr. Beecher a check for two 
hundred and fifty dollars, saying, " This is 
for you with my love — it is outside of any 



t)enrp War& Beecber 



495 



arrangement made with Major Pond." 
After they had retired to their rooms, 
Beecher handed the check to Pond, and 
said, as his blue eyes filled with tears, 
" Major, you know what to do with this?" 
And Major Pond said, "Yes." 

Tilton went to Europe, leaving his 
family behind. But Major Pond made 
it his business to see that Mrs. Tilton 
wanted for nothing that money could buy. 
Beecher never saw Mrs. Tilton, to converse 
with her, again. She outlived him a dozen 
years. On her death-bed she confessed to 
her sister that her denials as to her re- 
lationship with Beecher were untrue. 
"He loved me," she said, "he loved me, 
and I would have been less than woman 
had I not loved him. This love will be 
my passport to paradise — God under- 
stands." And so she died. 



tittS. 

Uilton's 
Deatb 



49 6 



IX 



Bn Kinetics 

cessful 
ADan 



TILTON was by nature an unsuccessful 
man. He was proudly aristocratic, 
lordly, dignified, jealous, mentally wiggling, 
and spiritually jiggling. His career was like 
that of a race-horse which makes a record 
faster than he can ever attain again, and 
thus is for ever barred from all slow-paced 
competitions. Tilton aspired to be a 
novelist, an essayist, a poet, an orator. 
His performances in each of these lines, 
unfortunately, were not bad enough to 
damn him; and his work done in fair 
weather was so much better than he could 
do in foul that he was caught by the 
undertow. And as for doing what Adiron- 
dack Murray did, get right down to hard- 
pan and wash dishes in a dishpan — he 
could not do it. Like an Indian, he would 
starve before he would work — and he 



Ibenrs TKHar& Beecber 



497 



came near it, gaining a garret living, 
teaching languages and doing hack literary 
work in Paris, where he went to escape 
the accumulation of contempt that came 
his way just after the great Beecher trial. 

Before this, Tilt on started out to star 
the country as a lecturer. He evidently 
thought he could climb to popularity over 
the wreck of Henry Ward Beecher. Even 
had he wrecked Beecher completely, it is 
very likely he would have gone down in 
the swirl, and become literary flotsam and 
jetsam just the same. 

Tilton had failed to down his man, and 
men who are failures do not draw on the 
lecture platform. The auditor has failure 
enough at home, God knows! and what 
he wants when he lays down good money 
for a lecture ticket is to annex himself to 
a success. Tilt on' s lecture was called The 
Problem of Life, a title which had the 
advantage of allowing the speaker to say 
anything he wished to say on any subject 
and still not violate the unities. I heard 
Tilton give this lecture twice, and it was 
given from start to finish in exactly the 
same way. It contained much learning — 
had flights of eloquence, bursts of bathos, 



Uilton a0 
lecturer 



498 



Xittle Journeys 



platform 
presence 



puffs of pathos, but not a smile in the whole 
hour and a half. It was "faultily faultless, 
icily regular, splendidly null, dead per- 
fection, no more." It was so perfect that 
some people thought it great. The man 
was an actor and had what is called plat- 
form presence. He would walk on the 
stage carrying his big blue cloak over 
his arm, his slouch hat in his hand — for he 
clung to these Beecher properties to the 
last, even claiming that Beecher was 
encroaching on his preserve in wearing 
them. 

He would bow as stiffly and solemnly 
as a new-made judge. Then he would 
toss the cloak on a convenient sofa, place 
the big hat on top of it, and come down 
to the footlights, deliberately removing 
his yellow kid gloves. There was no 
introduction — he was the whole show and 
brooked no competition. He would begin 
talking as he removed the gloves; he 
would get one glove off and hold it in the 
other hand, seemingly lost in his speech. 
From time to time he would emphasise 
his remarks by beating the palm of his 
gloved hand with the loose glove. By the 
time the lecture was half over, both gloves 



Ibenrs Mart) Beecber 



499 



would be lying on the table; unlike the 
performance of Sir Edwin Arnold, who, 
during his readings, always wore one 
white kid glove and carried its mate in the 
gloved hand from beginning to end. 

Theodore Tilton's lectures were con- 
summate art, done by a handsome, graceful, 
and cultured man in a red necktie, but 
they did not carry enough caloric to make 
them go. They seemed to lack vibrations. 
Art without a message is for the people 
who love art for art's sake, and God does 
not care much for these, otherwise He 
would not have made so few of them. 



Hrt wftb= 
out a 

Message 



5°° 



X 



Sermon on 
Deatb of 
Xincoln 



AS a sample of Beecher's eloquence, 
this extract from his sermon on the 
death of Lincoln reveals his quality: 

The joy of the nation came upon us 
suddenly, with such a surge as no words can 
describe. Men laughed, embraced one an- 
other, sang and prayed, and many could only 
weep for gladness. 

In one short hour, joy had no pulse. The 
sorrow was so terrible that it stunned sen- 
sibility. The first feeling was the least, and 
men wanted to get strength to feel. Other 
griefs belong always to some one in chief, 
but this belonged to all. Men walked for 
hours as though a corpse lay in their houses. 
The city forgot to roar. Never did so many 
hearts in so brief a time touch two such 
boundless feelings. It was the uttermost 
of joy and the uttermost of sorrow — noon 
and midnight without a space between. We 



Ibenrs Mart) JSeecber 



5^i 



should not mourn, however, because the 
departure of the president was so sudden. 
When one is prepared to die, the suddenness 
of death is a blessing. They that are taken 
awake and watching, as the bridegroom 
dressed for the wedding, and not those who 
die in pain and stupour, are blessed. Neither 
should we mourn the manner of his death. 
The soldier prays that he may die by the shot 
of the enemy in the hour of victory, and it 
was meet that he should be joined in a com- 
mon experience in death with the brave 
men to whom he had been joined in all his 
sympathy and life. 

This blow was but the expiring rebellion. 
Epitomised in this foul act we find the whole 
nature and disposition of slavery. It is fit 
that its expiring blow should be such as to 
take away from men the last forbearance, 
the last pity, and fire the soul with invincible 
determination that the breeding- system of 
such mischiefs and monsters shall be forever 
and utterly destroyed. We needed not that 
he should put on paper that he believed in 
slavery, who, with treason, with murder, with 
cruelty infernal, hovered round that ma- 
jestic man to destroy his life. He was him- 
self the life-long sting with which Slavery 
struck at Liberty, and he carried the poison 
that belonged to slavery; and as long as this 



Eypiring 
Rebellion 



Xtttle Journeps 



Elowjfatls 
of its 
©Meet 



Nation lasts it will never be forgotten that 
we have had one martyr- president — never, 
never while time lasts, while heaven lasts, 
while hell rocks and groans, will it be for- 
gotten that slavery by its minions slew him, 
and in slaying him made manifest its whole 
nature and tendency. This blow was aimed 
at the life of the government. Some murders 
there have been that admitted shades of 
palliation, but not such a one as this — without 
provocation, without reason, without temp- 
tation — sprung from the fury of a heart can- 
kered to all that is pure and just. 

The blow has failed of its object. The 
government stands more solid to-day than 
any pyramid of Egypt. Men love liberty 
and hate slavery to-day more than ever before. 
How naturally, how easily, the government 
passed into the hands of the new president; 
and I avow my belief that he will be found 
a man true to every instinct of liberty, true 
to the whole trust that is imposed in him, 
vigilant of the Constitution, careful of the 
laws, wise for liberty, in that he himself for 
his life long, has known what it is to suffer 
from the stings of slavery, and to prize liberty 
from the bitter experience of his own life. 
Even he that sleeps has by this event been 
clothed with new influence. His simple 
and weighty words will be gathered like those 



fc>enrs Mart) Beecber 



5°3 



of Washington, and be quoted by those 
who, were he alive, would refuse to listen. 
Men will receive a new access to patriotism. 
I swear you on the altar of his memory to be 
more faithful to that country for which he 
perished. We will, as we follow his hearse, 
swear a new hatred to that slavery against 
which he warred, and which in vanquishing 
him has made him a martyr and conqueror. 
I swear you by the memory of this martyr 
to hate slavery with an unabatable hatred, 
and to pursue it. We will admire the firm- 
ness of this man in justice, his inflexible 
conscience for the right, his gentleness and 
moderation of spirit, which not all the hate 
of party could turn to bitterness. And I 
swear you to follow his justice, his moderation, 
his mercy. How can I speak*to that twilight 
million to whom his name was as the name 
of an angel of God, and whom God sent before 
them to lead them out of the house of bondage? 
O thou Shepherd of Israel, Thou that didst 
comfort Thy people of old, to Thy care we 
commit these helpless and long-wronged 
and grieved. 

And now the martyr is moving in triumphal 
march, mightier than one alive. The nation 
rises up at every stage of his coming: cities 
and states are his pall-bearers, and the cannon 
beat the hours in solemn progression; dead, 



fjatreo of 
Slavery 



5°4 



Xittle Journeys 



B Obigbty 
Conqueror 



dead, dead, he yet speaketh. Is Washington 
dead? Is Hampden dead? Is David? Four 
years ago, O Illinois, we took from your 
midst an untried man from among the 
people. Behold! we return him to you a 
mighty conqueror: not thine any more, but 
the Nation's — not ours, but the world's. 
Give him place, O ye prairies! in the midst 
of this great continent shall rest a sacred 
treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that 
shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. 
Ye winds that move over mighty spaces of 
the West, chant his requiem! Ye people, 
behold the martyr whose blood, as so many 
articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, 
for LIBERTY! 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 



505 



5°7 



What world-wide benefactors these "imprudent" 
men are! How prudently most men creep into 
nameless graves; while now and then one or two 
forget themselves into immortality. 

Speech on Lovejoy. 



•ffmmortal 
mames 



—3a 



5°9 



M 



AY the good Lord ever keep me 
from wishing to say the last word ; 
and also from assigning ranks or awarding 
prizes to great men gone. However, it is 
a joy to get acquainted with a noble, 
splendid personality, and then introduce 
him to you, or at least draw the arras, so 
you can see him as he lived and worked or 
nobly failed. 

And if you and I understand this man 
it is because we are much akin to him. 
The only relationship, after all, is the 
spiritual relationship. Your brother after 
the flesh may not be your brother at all; 
you may live in different worlds and call 
to each other in strange tongues across 
wide seas of misunderstandings. "Who 
is my mother and who are my brethren?" 

As you understand a man, just in that 



Spiritual 
ftinsbfp 



5i° 



Xittle 3ourness 



(Breat flDen 
ate *ttjuman 



degree are you related to him. There is 
a great joy in discovering kinship — for in 
that moment you discover yourself, and 
life consists in getting acquainted with 
yourself. We see ourselves mirrored in 
the soul of another — that is what love 
is — or pretty nearly so. 

If you like what I write, it is because I 
express for you the things you already 
know; we are akin, our heads are in the 
same stratum — we are breathing the same 
atmosphere. To the degree that you 
comprehend the character of Wendell 
Phillips you are akin to him. I once 
thought great men were all ten feet high, 
but since I have met a few, both in astral 
form and in the flesh, I have found out 
differently. 

What kind of a man was Wendell 
Phillips? 

Very much like you and me, Blessed, 
very much like you and me. 

I think well of great people, I think 
well of myself, and I think well of you. 
We are all God's children — all parts of 
the whole — akin to divinity. 

Phillips never thought he was doing 
much — never took any great pride in 



5™ 




<Breat toen 
atcftuman 


degree a 



Xittle Journeys 



There is 
— for in 









»u the things you 

, our h i the 

breathing the. same 
j that 

Wendell Phillips * ^ ende11 

From a steel engraving 



nan was Wendell 
Phillips? 

Very much like you and me, Blessed, 
much like you and me. 
well of gr 



s doing 
)ridt 



Menftcll pbilltps 



511 



past performances. When what you have 
done in the past looks large to you, you 
have not done much to-day. His hopes 
were so high that there crept into his 
life a tinge of disappointment — some 
have called it bitterness, but that is not 
the word — just a touch of sadness because 
he was unable to do more. This was a 
matter of temperament, perhaps, but 
it reveals the humanity as well as the 
divinity of the man. There is nothing 
worse than self-complacency — smugosity 
is sin. Phillips was not supremely great — 
if he were, how could we comprehend him ? 
And now if you will open those folding 
doors — there! that will do — thank you. 



B Matter 
of Uem* 
perament 



5i2 



II 



B 

ttscmote 
able Date 



WHEN was he born? Ah, I '11 tell you 
— it was in his twenty-fifth year 
— about three in the afternoon, by the 
clock, October 21, 1835. It was an Indian 
summer day, warm and balmy. He sat 
there reading in the window of his office 
on Court Street, Boston, a spick-span new 
law office, with four shelves of law books 
bound in sheep, a green-covered table in 
the centre, three arm-chairs, and on the 
wall a steel engraving of Washington Cross- 
ing the Delaware. 

He was a handsome fellow, was this 
Wendell Phillips — it would have been worth 
your while just to run up the stairs and 
put your head in the door to look at him. 
"Can I do anything for you?" he would 
have asked. " No, we just wanted to see 
you, that 's all, " we would have replied. 



Menfceli pbfllfps 



513 



He sat there at the window, his long 
legs crossed, a copy of Coke on Littleton in 
his hands. His dress was what it should 
be — that of a gentleman — his face cleanly 
shaven, hair long, cut square, and falling 
to his black stock. He was the only son 
of Boston's first mayor, both to the manor 
and manner born, rich in his own right; 
proud, handsome, strong, gentle, refined, 
educated; a Christian gentleman, heir to 
the best that Boston had to give; a 
graduate of the Boston Latin School, of 
Harvard College, of the Harvard Law 
school — living with his widowed mother 
in a mansion of Beacon Hill, overlooking 
Boston's forty- three acres of Common! 

Can you imagine anything more com- 
plete in way of endowment than all this? 
Did destiny ever do more for mortal man ? 

There he sat waiting for clients. About 
this time he made the acquaintance of a 
cock-eyed pulchritudinous youth, Ben But- 
ler by name, who was errand boy in a 
near-by office. It was a strange friendship 
— peppered by much cross-fire whenever 
they met in public — to endure loyal for a 
lifetime. 

Clients are sure to come to the man 



tperfect 

Enbows 

ment 



5H 



Xittle Sourness 



tRoar of 
/IDob 



who is not too anxious about them, sure 
to come to a man like Phillips — a youth 
clothed with the graces of a Greek — 
waiting on the threshold of manhood's 
morning. 

Here is his career: a successful lawyer 
and leader in society; a member of the 
Legislature; a United States Senator, and 
then if he cares for it — well, well, well! 
But in the meantime, there he sits, not 
with his feet in the window or on a chair 
— he is a gentleman, I said, a Boston 
gentleman — the flower of a gracile an- 
cestry. In the lazy, hazy air is the hum 
of autumn birds and beetles — the hectic 
beauty of the dying year is over all. The 
hum seems to grow — it becomes a subdued 
roar. You have sat behind the scenes 
waiting for the curtain to rise ; a thousand 
people are there just out of your sight 
— five hundred of them are talking. It is 
one high-keyed humming roar. 

The roar of a mob is keyed lower — it 
is guttural and approaches a growl; it 
seems to come in waves, a brazen roar 
rising and falling, but a roar, full of 
menace, hate, deaf to reason, dead to 
appeal. You have heard the roar of 



menfcell pblllips 



515 



the mob in Julius Ccesar, and stay! 
once I heard the genuine article. It was 
in eighty-four — goodness gracious, I am 
surely getting old — it was in a town out 
west. I saw nothing but a pushing, crowd- 
ing mass of men, and all I heard was that 
deep guttural roar of the beast. I could 
not make out what it was all about until 
I saw a man climbing a telegraph pole. 

He was carrying a rope in one hand. 
As he climbed higher, the roar subsided. 
The climber reached the arms that form 
the cross. He swung the rope over the 
cross-beam and paid it out until the end 
was clutched by the uplifted hands of 
those below. 

The roar arose again like an angry sea, 
and I saw the figure of a human being leap 
twenty feet into the air and swing and 
swirl at the end of the rope. 

The roar ceased. 



Xifee an 

Bngts Sea 



The lawyer laid down the brand-new 
book, bound in sheep, and leaned out of 
the window. Men were running down 
the thoroughfare, some hatless, and at 
Washington Street could be seen a black 
mass of human beings — beings who had 



5i6 



Xittie Journeys 



Confusion 



forsaken their reason and merged their 
personality into a mob. 

The young lawyer arose, put on his hat, 
locked his office, followed down the street. 
His tall and muscular form pushed its way 
through the mass. 

Theodore Lyman, the mayor, was stand- 
ing on a barrel importuning the crowd 
to disperse. His voice was lost in the 
roar of the mob. 

From down a stairway came a pro- 
cession of women, thirty or so, walking 
by twos, very pale, but calm. The crowd 
gradually opened out on a stern order 
from some unknown person. The young 
lawyer threw himself against those who 
blocked the way. The women passed on, 
and the crowd closed in as water closes 
over a pebble dropped into the water. 

The disappearance of the women seemed 
to heighten the confusion: there were 
stones thrown, sounds of breaking glass — 
a crash on the stairway, and down the 
narrow passage, with yells of triumph, 
came a crowd of men, half dragging a 
prisoner, a rope around his waist, his arms 
pinioned. The man's face was white, 
his clothing dishevelled and torn. His 



TKHenbell pbillips 517 

resistance was passive — no word of en- tRfot 
treaty or explanation escaped his lips. 
A sudden jerk on the rope from the hund- 
red hands that clutched it threw the man 
off his feet — he fell headlong, his face 
struck the stones of the pavement, and 
he was dragged for twenty yards. The 
crowd grabbed at hirn and lifted him to 
his feet — blood dripped from his face, his 
hat was gone, his coat, vest, and shirt were 
in shreds. 

The man spoke no word. 

11 That 's him — Garrison, the damned 
Abolitionist!" The words arose above 
the din. "Kill him! Hang him!" 

Phillips saw the colonel of his militia reg- 
iment, and, seizing him by the arm, said, 
" Order out the men to put down this riot ! " 

"Fool!" said the colonel, "don't you 
see our men are in this crowd!" 

" Then order them into columns and we 
will protect this man." 

" I never give orders unless I know they 
will be obeyed. Besides, this man Garri- 
son is a rioter himself — he opposes the 
government. " 

" But, do we uphold mob law — here, in 
Boston!" 



5i8 



Xittle Journeys 



(Bartison 

lochcb "Up 



" Don't blame me — I have n't any- 
thing to do with this business. I tell 
you, if this man Garrison had minded his 
own affairs this scene would never have 
occurred." 

"And those women!" 

" Oh, they are members of the Anti- 
Slavery Society. It was their holding 
the meeting that made the trouble. The 
children followed them, hooting them 
through the streets!" 

"Children?" 

"Yes, you know children repeat what 
they hear at home — they echo the thoughts 
of their elders. The children hooted them, 
then some one threw a stone through a 
window. A crowd gathered, and here 
you are!" 

The colonel shook himself loose from 
the lawyer and followed the mob. The 
mayor's counsel prevailed — "Give the 
prisoner to me — I will see that he is pun- 
ished!" And so he was dragged to the 
City Hall and there locked up. 

The crowd lingered, then thinned out. 
The shouts grew less, and soon the police 
were able to rout the loiterers. 

The young lawyer went back to his 



XlGlenbeU pbtllips 



5*9 



law office, but not to study. The law 
looked different to him now — the whole 
legal aspect of things had changed in an 
hour. It was a pivotal point. 

He had heard much of the majesty of 
the law, and here he had seen the entire 
machinery 'of justice brushed aside. 

Law! It is the thing we make with 
our hands and then fall down and worship. 
Men want to do things, so they do them, 
and afterward they legalise them, just 
as we believe things first and later hunt 
for reasons. Or we illegalise the thing 
we do not want others to do. 

Boston, standing for law and order, 
will not even allow a few women to 
meet and discuss an economic proposi- 
tion ! 

Abolition is a fool idea, but we must 
have free speech — that is what our con- 
stitution is built upon! Law is supposed 
to protect free speech, even to voicing 
wrong ideas! Surely a man has a legal 
right to a wrong opinion! A mob in 
Boston to put down free speech! 

This young lawyer was not an Abo- 
litionist — not he ; but he was an American, 
descended from the Puritans, with an- 



B pivotal 
point 



Xittle Sourness 



cestors who fought in the war of 
Revolution — he believed in fair play. 
His cheeks burned with shame. 



the 



Ill 



521 



SEEN from Mount Olympus, how small 
and pitiful must seem the antics of 
earth — all these churches and little sects — 
our laws, our arguments, our courts of 
justice, our elections, our wars! 

Viewed across the years, the Abolition 
movement seems a small thing. It is so 
thoroughly dead — so far removed from 
our present interests! We hear a Vir- 
ginian praise John Brown, listen to Henry 
Watterson as he says, "The South never 
had a better friend than Lincoln," or 
brave General Gordon as he declares, 
" We now know that slavery was a gigantic 
mistake, and that Emerson was right 
when he said, 'One end of the slave's 
chain is always riveted to the wrist of the 
master. ' " 

We can scarcely comprehend that fifty 



BboKtion 
Movement 



522 



Xittie Journeys 



(Barrteon 

Apposes 
Slavery 



years ago the trio of money, fashion, and 
religion combined in the hot endeavour 
to make human slavery a perpetuity; 
that the man of the North who hinted 
at resisting the return of a runaway slave 
was in danger of financial ruin, social 
ostracism, and open rebuke from the 
pulpit. The ears of Boston were so 
stuffed with South Carolina cotton that 
they could not hear the cry of the op- 
pressed. Commerce was fettered by self- 
interest, and law ever finds precedents and 
sanctions for what commerce most desires. 
And as for the pulpit, it is like the law 
in that scriptural warrant is always 
forthcoming for what the pew wishes to 
do. 

Slavery, theoretically, might be an er- 
ror, but in America it was a commercial, 
political, social, and religious necessity, 
and any man who said otherwise was an 
enemy of the State. 

William Lloyd Garrison said otherwise. 
But who was William Lloyd Garrison? 
Only an ignorant and fanatical free- 
thinker from the country town of New- 
buryport, Mass. He had started four 
or five newspapers, and all had failed, 



menfceil pbtlltps 



523 



because he would not keep his pen quiet 
on the subject of slavery. 

New England must have cotton, and 
cotton could not be produced without 
slaves. Garrison was a fool. All good 
Christians refused to read his vile sheet, 
and business men declined to advertise 
with him or to subscribe to his paper. 

However, he continued to print things, 
telling what he thought of slavery. In 
1 83 1, he was issuing a periodical called 
The Liberator. 

I saw a partial file of The Liberator 
recently, at the Boston Public Library. 
They say it is very precious, and a cus- 
todian stood by and tenderly turned the 
leaves for me. I was not allowed even to 
touch it, and when I was through looking 
at the tattered pages they locked it up 
in a fire-proof safe. 

The sheets of different issues were of 
various sizes, and the paper was of several 
grades in quality, showing that stock was 
scarce, and that there was no system 
in the office. 

There surely was not much of a sub- 
scription list, and we hear of Garrison's 
going around and asking for Contribu- 



te 
liberator 



5 2 4 



SLfttle Sourness 



ffieecber 



tions. But interviews were what he really 
wished, as much as subscribers. He let 
the preachers defend the peculiar insti- 
tution — to print a man's fool remarks is 
the most cruel way of indicting him. 
Among others Garrison called on was Dr. 
Lyman Beecher, then thundering against 
Unitarianism. 

Garrison got various clergymen to com- 
mit themselves in favour of slavery, and 
he quoted them verbatim, whereas, on this 
subject, the clergy of the North wished to 
remain silent — very silent. 

Dr. Beecher was wary — all he would 
say was, "I have too many irons in the 
fire now!" 

" You better take them all out and put 
this one in," said the seedy editor. 

But Dr. Beecher made full amends 
later — he supplied a son and a daughter 
to the Abolition movement, and this caused 
Carlos Martyn to say, "The old man's 
loins were wiser than his head." 

Garrison had gotten himself thoroughly 
disliked in Boston. The mayor once 
replied to a letter inquiring about him, 
" He is a nobody and lives in a rat hole." 
But Garrison managed to print his pa- 



Menfceil pbflUps 



525 



per, rather irregularly, to be sure, but he 
printed it. From one room he moved 
into two, and a straggling company call- 
ing themselves" The Anti-Slavery Society" 
used his office for a meeting-place. 

And now, behold the office mobbed, 
the type pitched into the street, the " So- 
ciety' ' driven out, and the fanatical edi- 
tor, bruised and battered, safely lodged 
in jail — writing editorials with a calm 
resolution and a will that never faltered. 
And Wendell Phillips? He was pacing 
the streets, wondering whether it was 
worth while to be respectable and pro- 
sperous in a city where violence took the 
place of law when logic failed. 

To him, Garrison had won — Garrison 
had not been answered : only beaten, bul- 
lied, abused and thrust behind prison bars. 

Wendell Phillips's cheeks burned with 
shame. 



Hntfs 

Slavers 
Society 



526 



IV 



©artieon 
tReleasct 



GARRISON was held a prisoner for 
several days. The mayor would 
have punished the man, Pilate-like, to 
appease public opinion, but there was 
no law to cover the case — no illegal 
offence had been committed. Garrison 
demanded a trial, but the officials said 
that they had locked him up merely 
to protect him, and that he was a base 
ingrate. Official Boston now looked at 
the whole matter as a good thing to forget. 
The prisoner's cell door was left open, 
in the hope that he would escape, just 
as, later, George Francis Train enjoyed 
the distinction of being the only man who 
was literally kicked down the stone steps 
of the Tombs. 

Garrison was thrust out of limbo, with 
a warning, and a hint that Boston-town 



liaenfceU pbillips 



5 2 7 



was a good place for him to emigrate from. 

But Garrison neither ran away nor 
went into hiding — he calmly began a 
canvass to collect money to refit his 
printing-office. Boston had treated him 
well — the blood of the martyrs is the seed 
of the Church ; he would stay. Men who 
fatten on difficulties are hard to subdue. 
Phillips met Garrison shortly after his 
release, quite by chance, at the house of 
Henry G. Chapman. Garrison was six 
years older than Phillips — tall, angular, 
intellectual, and lacked humour. He also 
lacked culture. Phillips looked at him 
and smiled grimly. 

But in the Chapman household was still 
another person, more or less interesting, 
a Miss Ann Terry Greene. She was an 
orphan and an heiress — a ward of Chap- 
man. Young Phillips had never before 
met Miss Greene, but she had seen him. 
She was one of the women who came down 
the stairs from the Liberator office, 
when the mob collected. She had seen 
the tall form of Phillips, and had noticed 
that he used his elbows to good advantage 
in opening up the gangway. 

"It was a little like a cane-rush — your 



Hnn TEerrs 
(Bteene 



5^8 



Xfttle 3ourne£S 



Ube 



campus practice served you in good 
stead," said the lady, and smiled. And 
Phillips listened, perplexed — that a young 
woman like this, frail, intellectual, of 
good family, should mix up in fanatical 
schemes for liberating black men. He 
could not understand it! 

11 But you were there — you helped get 
us out of the difficulty. And if worse had 
come to worst, I might have appealed to 
you personally for protection!" 

And the young lawyer stammered, " I 
would have been only too happy," or 
something like that. The lady had the 
best of the logic, and a thin attempt to 
pity her on account of the unfortunate 
occurrence went off by the right oblique 
and was lost in space. 

These Abolitionists were a queer lot! 

Not long after that meeting at Chap- 
man's, the young lawyer had legal business 
at Greenfield, that must be looked after. 
Now Greenfield is one hundred miles from 
Boston — but then it was the same dis- 
tance from tide-water that Omaha is now 
— that is to say, a two-days' journey. 

The day was set. The stage left every 
morning at nine o'clock from the Bowdoin 



Wenbeli pbillips 529 

Tavern in Bowdoin Square. A young u n tbe 
fellow by the name of Charles Sumner ®^ s 
was going with Phillips, but at the last 
moment was detained by other business. 
That his chum could not go was a disap- 
pointment to Phillips — he paced the stone- 
paved court-way of the tavern with 
clouded brow. All around was the bustle 
of travel, and tearful friends bidding folks 
good-bye, and the romantic rush of stage- 
coach land. 

The ease and luxury of travel have 
robbed it of its poetry — Ruskin was 
right! 

But it did not look romantic to Wendell 
Phillips just then — his chum had failed 
him; the weather was cold, two days 
of hard jolting lay ahead. And — "Ah! 
yes — it is Miss Greene! and Miss Grew, 
and Mr. Alvord. To Greenfield? why, how 
fortunate!" 

Obliging strangers exchanged seats, so 
our friends could be together — passengers 
found their places on top or inside, bundles 
and bandboxes were packed away, har- 
ness chains rattled, a long whip sang 
through the air, and the driver, holding 
a big bunch of lines in one hand, swung 



53° 



Xittle Journeys 



B 

tRomantic 
SourneB 



the six horses, with careless grace, out of 
Bowdoin Square, and turned the leaders' 
heads towards Cambridge. The post-horn 
tooted merrily, dogs barked, and stable- 
boys raised a good-bye cheer! Out past 
Harvard Square they went, through 
Arlington and storied Lexington — on to 
Concord — through Fitchburg, to Green- 
field. 

It does not take long to tell it, but that 
was a wonderful trip for Phillips — the 
greatest and most important journey of 
his life, he said forty years later. 

Miss Grew lived in Greenfield and had 
been down to visit Miss Greene. Mr. 
Alvord was engaged to Miss Grew, and 
wanted to accompany her home, but he 
could not exactly, you know, unless Miss 
Greene went along. 

So Miss Greene obliged them. The 
girls knew the day Phillips was going, 
and hastened their plans a trifle, so as to 
take the same stage — at least that is what 
Charles Sumner said. 

They did not tell Phillips, because a 
planned excursion on the part of these 
young folks would not have been just right 
— Beacon Hill would not have approved. 



Menfcell pbtlltps 



531 



But when they had bought their seats and 
met at the stage- yard — why, that was a 
different matter. 

Besides, Mr. Alvord and Miss Grew 
were engaged, and Miss Greene was a 
cousin of Miss Grew — there! 

Let me here say that I am quite aware 
that long after Miss Grew became Mrs. 
Alvord, she wrote a most charming little 
book about Ann Terry Greene, in which 
she defends the woman against any sus- 
picion that she plotted and planned to 
snare the heart of Wendell Phillips, on the 
road to Greenfield. The defence was done 
in love, but was unnecessary. Ann Terry 
Greene needs no vindication. As for her 
snaring the heart of Wendell Phillips, I 
rest solidly on this : She did. 

Whether Miss Greene coolly planned 
that trip to Greenfield I cannot say, but 
I hope so. 

And, anyway, it was destiny — it had to 
be. 

This man and woman were made for 
each other — they were "elected" before 
the foundations of earth were laid. 

The first few hours out, they were very 
gay. Later, they fell into serious con- 



Ube Snars 
ing of a 
"fceart 



532 



Xittle Journeys 



3fuse& 
Ubougbt 



versation. The subject was abolition. 
Miss Greene knew the theme in all of its 
ramifications and parts — its history, its 
difficulties, its dangers, its ultimate hopes. 
Phillips soon saw that all of his tame ob- 
jections had been made before and an- 
swered. Gradually the horror of human 
bondage swept over him, and against this 
came the magnificence of freedom and of 
giving freedom. By evening, it came 
to him that all of the immortal names in 
history were those of men who had fought 
liberty's battle. That evening, as they 
sat around the crackling fire at the 
Fitchburg Tavern, they did not talk. A 
point had been reached where words were 
superfluous — -the silence sufficed. At day- 
break the next morning the journey was 
continued. There was conversation, but 
voices were keyed lower. When the stage 
mounted a steep hill they got out and 
walked. Melancholy had taken place of 
mirth. Both felt that a great and mys- 
terious change had come over their spirits 
— their thought was fused. Miss Greene 
had suffered social obloquy on account 
of her attitude on the question of slavery 
— to share this obloquy seemed now the 



Menfcell jpbUUps 



533 



one thing desirable to Phillips. It is a 
great joy to share disgrace with the right 
person. The woman had intellect, edu- 
cation, self-reliance — and passion. There 
was an understanding between them. 
And yet no word of tenderness had been 
spoken. An avowal formulated in words 
is a cheap thing, and a spoken proposal 
goes with a cheap passion. The love 
that makes the silence eloquence and fills 
the heart with a melody too sacred to 
voice, is the true token. O God! we 
thank Thee for the thoughts and feelings 
that are beyond speech. 



BnTHn6er= 

stanfcina 



534 



©utcrs of 
Iborror 



WHEN it became known that Wendell 
Phillips, the most promising of 
Boston's young sons, had turned Aboli- 
tionist, Beacon Hill rent its clothes and 
put ashes on its head. 

On the question of slavery, the first fam- 
ilies of the North stood with the first fam- 
ilies of the South — the rights of property- 
were involved, as well as the question of 
caste. Let one of the scions of Wall Street 
avow himself an anarchist and the outcry 
of horror would not be greater than it was 
when young Phillips openly declared him- 
self an Abolitionist. His immediate family 
were in tears; the relatives said they were 
disgraced; cousins cut him dead on the 
street, and his name was stricken from 
the list of "invited guests." The social- 
column editors ignored him, and, worst of 
all, his clients fled. 



Wenfceli ipbtilips 



535 



The biographers are too intensely par- 
tisan to believe, literally, and when one 
says, " He left a large and lucrative 
practice that he might devote himself, " 
etc., etc., we better reach for the Syracuse 
product. 

Wendell Phillips never had a large and 
lucrative practice, and if he had, he would 
not have left it. His little law business 
was the kind that all fledglings get — the 
kind that big lawyers do not want, and 
so they pass it over to the boys. Doc- 
tors are always turning pauper patients 
over to the youngsters, and so in success- 
ful law offices there is more or less of 
this semi-charitable work to do. Business 
houses also have fag-end work that they 
give to beginners, as kind folks give bones 
to Fido. Wendell Phillips's law work was 
exactly of this contingent kind — big busi- 
ness and big fees only go to big men and 
tried. 

Law is a business, and lawyers who 
succeed are business men. Social dis- 
tinction has its pull in all professions and 
all arts, and the man who can afford to 
affront society and hope to succeed is as 
one in a million. 



law 
practice 



536 



Xittle Journeys 



law ani> 
Society 

©uit 
Ipblllips 



Lawyers and business men were not so 
troubled about Wendell Phillips's inward 
beliefs as they were in the fact that he 
was a fool — he had flung away his chances 
of getting on in the world. They ceased 
to send him business — he had no work — 
no callers — folks he used to know were 
now strangely near-sighted. 

Phillips did not quit the practice of law, 
any more than he withdrew from society 
— both law and society quit him. And 
then he made a virtue of necessity and 
boldly resigned his commission as a 
lawyer — he would not longer be bound to 
protect the Constitution that upheld the 
right of a slave-owner to capture his 
"property" in Massachusetts. 

He and Ann talked this over at length 
— they had little else to do. They excom- 
municated society, and Wendell Phillips 
became an outlaw, in the same way that 
the James boys became outlaws — through 
accident, and not through choice. Social 
disgrace is never sought, and obloquy is 
not a thing to covet — these things may 
come, and usually they mean a smother- 
blanket to all worldly success. 

But Ann and Wendell had their love; 



mnenbell pbUIips 



537 



and each had a bank account, and then 
they had pride that proved a prophylactic 
'gainst the clutch of oblivion. 

On October 12, 1837, the outlaws, 
Ann and Wendell, were married. It was 
a quiet wedding — guests were not invited 
because it was not pleasant to court 
cynical regrets, and kinsmen were notice- 
able by their absence. 

Proscription has its advantages — for 
one thing, it binds human hearts like 
hoops of steel. Yet it was not necessary 
here, for there was no w T aning of the honey- 
moon during that forty-odd years of 
married life. 

But scarcely had the petals fallen from 
the orange blossoms before an event oc- 
curred that marked another mile-stone in 
the career of Phillips. 

At St. Louis the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, a 
Presbyterian clergyman, had been mobbed 
and his printing office sacked, because he 
had expressed himself on the subject of 
slavery. Lovejoy then moved up to Alton, 
Illinois, on the other side of the river, on 
free soil, and here he sought to re-establish 
his newspaper. 

But he was to benefit the cause in 



B ©ufet 
Wfle&Dfng 



538 



Xtttle 3ourness 



Meeting at 

jfaneutl 

Dall 



another way than by printing editorials. 
The place was attacked, the presses broken 
into fragments, the type flung into the 
Mississippi River, and Love joy was killed. 

A tremor of horror ran through the 
North — it was not the question of slavery 
— no, it was the right of free speech. 

A meeting was called at Faneuil Hall 
to consider the matter and pass fitting 
resolutions. There was something beauti- 
fully ironical in Boston interesting herself 
concerning the doings of a mob a thousand 
miles away, especially when Boston herself 
had done about the same thing only two 
years before. 

Boston preferred to forget — but some- 
body would not let her. Just who called 
the meeting, no one seemed to know. 
The word "abolition" was not used on 
the placards — "free speech" was the shib- 
boleth. The hall had been leased, and 
the assembly was to occur in the forenoon. 
The principal actors evidently anticipated 
serious trouble if the meeting was at night. 

The authorities sought to discourage 
the gathering, but this only advertised 
it. At the hour set, the place — "The 
Cradle of Liberty" — was packed. 



TKIen&ell pbilUps 



539 



The crowd was made up of three classes : 
the Abolitionists — and they were in the 
minority; the mob who hotly opposed 
them, and the curious and indifferent 
people who wanted to see the fireworks. 

Many women were in the audience, and 
a dozen clergymen on the platform — this 
gave respectability to the assemblage. 
The meeting opened tamely enough with 
a trite talk by a Unitarian clergyman, and 
followed along until the resolutions were 
read. Then there were cries of " Table 
them! ,, — the matter was of no importance. 

A portly figure was seen making its way 
to the platform. It was the Hon. James 
T. Austin, Attorney-General of the State. 
He was stout, florid, ready of tongue 
— a practical stump-speaker and withal 
a good deal of a popular favourite. The 
crowd cheered him — he caught them 
from the start. His intent was to explode 
the whole thing into a laugh, or else end 
it in a row — he did not care which. 

He pooh-poohed the whole affair, and 
referred to the slaves as a menagerie of 
lions, tigers, hyenas — a jackass or two — 
and a host of monkeys, which the fool 
Abolitionists were trying to turn loose. 



Bttotnes= 

©eneral's 

Speecb 



54° 



Xfttle Journeys 



Ube 

Hnswer 



He regretted the death of Lovejoy, but 
his taking-off should be a warning to all 
good people — they should be law-abiding 
and mind their own business. He moved 
that the resolutions be tabled. 

The applause that followed showed that 
if a vote were then taken the Attorney- 
General's motion would have prevailed. 

" Answer him, Wendell, answer him!" 
whispered Ann, excitedly, and before the 
Attorney- General had bowed himself from 
the platform Wendell Phillips had sprung 
upon the stage and stood facing the audi- 
ence. There were cries of, "Vote! vote I" 
— the mobocrats wanted to cut the matter 
short. Still others shouted, "Fair play! 
Let us hear the boy!" The young man 
stood there calm, composed — handsome in 
the strength of youth. He waited until 
the audience came to him and then he 
spoke in that dulcet voice — deliberate, 
measured, faultless, every sentence spaced. 
The charm of his speech caught the curi- 
osity of the crowd. People did not know 
whether he was going to sustain the 
Attorney-General or assail him. From 
compliments and generalities he moved 
off into bitter sarcasm. He riddled the 



TKHen&eli pbiliips 



541 



cheap wit of his opponent; tore his logic 
to tatters and held the pitiful rags of 
reason up before the audience. There 
were cries of, ''Treason!" "Put him 
out!" Phillips simply smiled and waited 
for the frenzy to subside. The speaker 
who has aroused his hearers into a tumult 
of either dissent or approbation has won 
— and Phillips did both. He spoke for 
thirty minutes and finished in a whirlwind 
of applause. The Attorney-General had 
disappeared, and those of his followers 
who remained were strangely silent. The 
resolutions were passed in a shout of 
acclamation. 

The fame of Wendell Phillips as an 
orator was made. Father Taylor once 
said, "If Emerson goes to hell, he will 
start emigration in that direction." And 
from the day of that first Faneuil Hall 
speech Wendell Phillips gradually caused 
Abolitionism in New England to become 
respectable. 



of 

Bpplause 



542 



VI 



Bn 

Bgitator 



PHILLIPS was twenty-seven years old 
when he gave that first great speech, 
and for just twenty-seven years he con- 
tinued to speak on the subject of slavery. 
He was an agitator — he was a man who 
divided men. He supplied courage to the 
weak, arguments to the many, and sent 
a chill of hate and fear through the hearts 
of the enemy. And just here is a good 
place to say that your radical — your 
fire-eater, agitator, and revolutionary who 
dips his pen in aqua fortis, and punctuates 
with blood, is almost without exception, 
met socially, a very gentle, modest, and 
suave individual. William Lloyd Garri- 
son, Wendell Phillips, Horace Greeley, 
Fred Douglass, George William Curtis, and 
even John Brown, were all men with low, 
musical voices and modest ways — men 



TKHenfceil pbiilips 



543 



who would not tread on an insect or 
harm a toad. When the fight had been 
won — the Emancipation Proclamation is- 
sued — there were still other fights ahead. 
The habit of Phillips's life had become 
fixed. 

He and Ann lived in that plain little 
home on Exeter Street, and to this home 
of love he constantly turned for rest and 
inspiration. 

At the close of the war he found his 
fortune much impaired, and he looked to 
the Lyceum Stage — the one thing for 
which he was so eminently fitted. 

It was about the year 1880 a callow 
interviewer asked him who his closest 
associates were. The answer was: "My 
colleagues are hackmen and hotel clerks; 
and I also know every conductor, brake- 
man, and engineer on every railroad in 
America. My home is in the caboose, 
and my business is running trains." 

I heard Wendell Phillips speak but once. 
I was about twelve years of age, and my 
father and I had ridden ten miles across 
the wind-swept prairie in the face of a win- 
ter storm. 

It was midnight when we reached home, 



Ube 

Xigceum 

Stage 



544 Xtttle Sourness 

s>ear but I could not sleep until I had told my 
anient* mo ther all about it. I remember that 
the hall was packed, and there were many 
gas-lights, and on the stage were a dozen 
men — all very great, my father said. 
One man arose and spoke. He lifted his 
hands, raised his voice, stamped his foot, 
and I thought he surely was a very great 
man. He was just introducing the real 
speaker. 

Then the Real Speaker walked slowly 
down to the front of the stage and stood 
very still. And everybody was awful 
quiet — no one coughed, nor shuffled his 
feet, nor whispered — I never knew a 
thousand folks could be so still. I could 
hear my heart beat — I leaned over to 
listen and I wondered what his first words 
would be, for I had promised to remember 
them for my mother. And the words were 
these — "My dear friends: We have met 
here to-night to talk about the Lost Arts." 
* * * That is just what he said— I '11 
not deceive you — and it was not a speech 
at all — he just talked to us. We were his 
dear friends — he said so, and a man with 
a gentle, quiet voice like that would not 
call us his friends if he was not our friend. 



Menfcell fcbtliips 



545 



He has found out some wonderful things 
and he had just come to tell us about them ; 
about how thousands of years ago men 
worked in gold and silver and ivory; how 
they dug canals, sailed strange seas, built 
wonderful palaces, carved statues and 
wrote books on the skins of animals. He 
just stood there and told us about these 
things — he stood still, with one hand 
behind him, or resting on his hip, or at his 
side, and the other hand motioned a little 
— that was all. We expected every min- 
ute he would burst out and make a speech, 
but he did not — he just talked. There 
was a big yellow pitcher and a tumbler on 
the table, but he did not drink once, be- 
cause you see he did not work very hard — 
he just talked — he talked for two hours. 
I know it was two hours, because we left 
home at six o'clock, got to the hall at eight, 
and reached home at midnight. We came 
home as fast as we went, and if it took us 
two hours to come home, and he began 
at eight, he must have been talking for 
two hours. I did not go to sleep — did not 
nod once. 

We hoped he would make a speech before 
he got through, but he did not. He just 



B Uwo 
fjours' 
Ualft 



54^ 



Xittle Sourness 



Httituoe of 
tbe ADan 



talked, and I understood it all. Father 
held my hand — we laughed a little in 
places, at others we wanted to cry, but 
did not — but most of the time we just 
listened. We were going to applaud, but 
forgot it. He called us his dear friends. 

I have heard thousands of. speeches 
since that winter night in Illinois. Very 
few indeed can I recall, and beyond the 
general theme, that speech by Wendell 
Phillips has gone from my memory. But 
I remember the presence and attitude 
and voice of the man as though it were 
but yesterday. The calm courage, de- 
liberation, beauty and strength of the 
speaker — his knowledge, his gentleness, 
his friendliness! I had heard many ser- 
mons, and some had terrified me. This 
time I had expected to be thrilled, too, 
and so I sat very close to my father and 
felt for his hand. And here it was all just 
quiet joy — I understood it all. I was 
pleased with myself; and being pleased 
with myself, I was pleased with the speaker. 
He was the biggest and best man I had 
ever seen — the first real man. 

It is no small thing to be a man! 



VII 



547 



IN 1853, Emerson said the reason Phil- 
lips was the best public speaker in 
America was because he had spoken every- 
day for fourteen years. 

This observation did not apply to Phil- 
lips at all, but Emerson used Phillips 
to hammer home a great general truth, 
which was that practice makes perfect. 

Emerson, like all the rest of us, had 
certain pet theories, which he was con- 
stantly bolstering by analogy and ex- 
ample. He had Phillips in mind when he 
said that the best drill for an orator was 
a course of mobs. But the cold fact re- 
mains that Phillips never made a better 
speech, even after fourteen years' daily 
practice, than that reply to Attorney- 
General Austin, at Faneuil Hall. 

He gave himself, and it was himself 



Emerson 
on pWUips 



548 



Xittle Journeys 



Ube 
IpbilUps 



full-armed and at his best. All the con- 
ditions were exactly right — there was hot 
opposition; and there also was love and 
encouragement. 

His opponent, with brag, bluster, pom- 
posity, cheap wit, and insincerity served 
him as a magnificent foil. Never again 
were wind and tide so in his favour. 

It is opportunity that brings out the 
great man, but he only is great who pre- 
pares for the opportunity — who knows 
it will come — and who seizes upon it when 
it arrives. 

In this speech, Wendell Phillips reveals 
himself at his best — it has the same ring 
of combined courage, culture, and sin- 
cerity that he showed to the last. Clear 
thinking and clear speaking marked the 
man. Taine says the style is the man — 
the Phillips style was all in that first 
speech, and here is a sample : 

To draw the conduct of our ancestors into 
a precedent for mobs, for a right to resist 
laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult 
to their memory. The difference between 
the excitement of those days and our own, 
which this gentleman in kindness to the latter 
has overlooked, is simply this: the men of 



TKHenfceU ipbflUps 



549 



that day went for the right, as secured by 
laws. They were the people rising to sustain 
the laws and constitution of the province. 
The rioters of our day go for their own wills, 
right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentle- 
man lay down principles which place the 
murderers of Alton side by side with Otis 
and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I 
thought those pictured lips [pointing to the 
portraits in the hall] would have broken into 
voice to rebuke the recreant American — the 
slanderer of the dead ! 

The gentleman said he should sink into 
insignificance if he condescended to gainsay 
the principles of these resolutions. For the 
sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated 
by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of 
patriots, the earth should have yawned and 
swallowed him up! 

Allusion has been made to what lawyers 
understand very well — the "conflict of laws." 
We are told that nothing but the Mississippi 
River runs between St. Louis and Alton; 
and the conflict of laws somehow or other 
gives the citizens of the former a right to find 
fault with the defender of the press for pub- 
lishing his opinions so near their limits. 
Will the gentleman venture that argument 
before lawyers? How the laws of the two 
states could be said to come into conflict in 



Conflict of 
laws 



55° 



Xtttle Journeys 



TTbeBffafr 
at aiton 



such circumstances, I question whether any 
lawyer in this audience can explain or under- 
stand. No matter whether the line that 
divides one sovereign State from another be 
an imaginary one or ocean- wide, the moment 
you cross it the State you leave is blotted 
out of existence, so far as you are concerned. 
The Czar might as well claim to control the 
deliberations of Faneuil Hall as the laws of 
Missouri demand reverence, or the shadow 
of obedience, from an inhabitant of Illinois. 
Sir, as I understand this affair, it was not 
an individual protecting his property: it was 
not one body of armed men assaulting another 
and making the streets of a peaceful city 
run blood with their contentions. It did 
not bring back the scenes in some old Italian 
cities, where family met family, and faction 
met faction, and mutually trampled the 
laws under foot. No: the men in that house 
were regularly enrolled under the sanction 
of the mayor. There being no militia in 
Alton, about seventy men were enrolled with 
the approbation of the mayor. These re- 
lieved each other every other night. About 
thirty men were in arms on the night of the 
sixth, when the press was landed. The next 
evening it was not thought necessary to 
summon more than half that number; among 
these was Lovejoy. It was, therefore, you 



TKHen&ell Ipbfllips 



551 



perceive, sir, the police of the city resisting 
rioters, civil government breasting itself to the 
shock of lawless men. Here is no question 
about the right of self-defence. It is, in fact, 
simply this: Has the civil magistrate a right 
to put down a riot? Some persons seem 
to imagine that anarchy existed at Alton 
from the commencement of these disputes. 
Not at all. "No one of us," says an eye- 
witness and a comrade of Lovejoy, "has 
taken up arms during these disturbances but 
at the command of the mayor." Anarchy 
did not settle down on that devoted city till 
Lovejoy breathed his last. Till then the 
law, represented in his person, sustained 
itself against its foes. When he fell, civil 
authority was trampled under foot. He had 
"planted himself on his constitutional rights" 
— appealed to the laws — claimed the pro- 
tection of the civil authority — taken refuge 
under "the broad shield of the Constitution. 
When through that he was pierced and fell, 
he fell but one sufferer in a common catas- 
trophe. " He took refuge under the banner 
of liberty — amid its folds; and when he fell 
its glorious stars and stripes, the emblem 
of free constitutions, around which cluster 
so many heart- stirring memories, were blotted 
out in the martyr's blood. 

If, sir, I had adopted what are called 



XoveJoB 



55 : 



Xittle Journeys 



Jf ree&om of 
tbe press 



peace principles, I might lament the circum- 
stances of this case. But all of you who 
believe, as I do, in the right and duty of 
magistrates to execute the laws, join with 
me and brand as base hypocrisy the conduct 
of those who assemble year after year on the 
Fourth of July, to fight over battles of the 
Revolution, and yet "damn with faint 
praise, " or load with obloquy, the memory 
of this man, who shed his blood in defence 
of life, liberty, and the freedom of the press! 

Imprudent to defend the freedom of the 
press! Why? Because the defence was un- 
successful? Does success gild crime into 
patriotism, and want of it change heroic 
self-devotion to imprudence? Was Hampden 
imprudent when he drew the sword and 
threw away the scabbard? Yet he, judged 
by that single hour, was unsuccessful. After 
a short exile, the race he hated sat again 
upon the throne. 

Imagine yourself present when the first 
news of Bunker Hill battle reached a New 
England town. The table would have run 
thus: "The patriots are routed; the redcoats 
victorious; Warren lies dead upon the field. " 
With what scorn would that Tory have been 
received who should have charged Warren 
with imprudence! who should have said that, 
bred as a physician, he was "out of place" 



TOenbell pbxllips 



553 



in the battle, and "died as the fool dieth"! 
[Great applause.] How would the intimation 
have been received that Warren and his 
associates should have waited a better time? 
But, if success be indeed the only criterion 
of prudence, Respice finem — wait till the end. 

Presumptuous to assert the freedom of the 
press on American ground! Is the assertion 
of such freedom before the age? So much 
before the age as to leave one no right to make 
it because it displeases the community? 
Who invents this libel on his country? It is 
this very thing which entitles Love joy to 
greater praise. The disputed right which 
provoked the Revolution — taxation without 
representation — is far beneath that for which 
he died. [Here there was a strong and 
general expression of disapprobation.] One 
word, gentlemen. As much as thought is 
better than money, so much is the cause in 
which Love joy died nobler than a mere 
question of taxes. James Otis thundered 
in this hall when the king did but touch his 
pocket. Imagine, if you can, his indignant 
eloquence had England offered to put a gag 
upon his lips. [Great applause.] 

The question that stirred the Revolution 
touched our civil interests. This concerns 
us not only as citizens, but as immortal 
beings. Wrapped up in its fate, saved or 



m IRoMe 
Cause 



554 



%itt\c Journeys 



an& Jfree 

Speecb 



lost with it, are not only the voice of the 
statesman, but the instructions of the pulpit 
and the progress of our faith. 

The clergy "marvellously out of place" 
where free speech is battled for — liberty of 
speech on national sins? Does the gentleman 
remember that freedom to preach was first 
gained, dragging in its train freedom to print? 
I thank the clergy here present, as I reverence 
their predecessors, who did not so far forget 
their country in their immediate profession 
as to deem it duty to separate themselves 
from the struggle of '76 — the May hews and 
the Coopers — who remembered they were 
citizens before they were clergymen. . . 

I am glad, sir, to see this crowded house. 
It is good for us to be here. When liberty is 
in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is 
her duty, to strike the key-note of these 
United States. I am glad, for one reason, 
that remarks such as those to which I have 
alluded have been uttered here. The passage 
of these resolutions, in spite of this opposition, 
led by the Attorney- General of the Common- 
wealth, will show more clearly, more de- 
cisively, the deep indignation with which 
Boston regards this outrage. 



THE END. 



